Small Packages: Prompted Ficlets
by scribblemyname
Summary: Unrelated drabbles and ficlets for MCU/Avengers, canonical couples and mostly Clint/Natasha.
1. The Loneliest Number: Steve x Sharon

**A/N**: Prompted by daria234 on the comment_fic LJ community: MCU, Steve/Any, a rare evening alone

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><p><strong>The Loneliest Number<strong>

It was rare any more that Steve got to be truly alone. Ever since the Battle of New York, SHIELD had seemed determined as a group to keep him company.

"Natasha." He sighed into the phone. "Really, I just want to be alone in my apartment kitchen making dinner. No movie night, no date, no..."

"Cultural acclimation," Natasha agreed. "I get it."

Whoever was knocking on the door didn't.

"Coming," Steve growled as he pulled his food off the burner and went to answer. "Kate."

"Peace offering?" She held up an apple pie and smiled.

He laughed. "Come on in."


	2. You Call This Recreation?: Clint x Tasha

**A/N**: Written for the LJ comment_fic prompt by likewinning: MCU, Natasha/any, vacation. 100 words

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><p><strong>You Call This Recreation?<strong>

"A vacation is an extended period of recreation, especially one spent away from home or in traveling," Natasha read off of her Starkphone.

Steve sighed and glanced around at the thick woods around her cabin in the middle of… nowhere. "We had them back then too."

"Hm." She moved on. "Recreation is an activity done for enjoyment when one is not working."

"You enjoy it out here?" he asked, vaguely curious.

Natasha shrugged and closed her phone. "No. _He_ does. You can shoot his bow." She pushed open the door.

"What?" an indignant voice demanded. "My bow and—"

"My Clint."


	3. Maybe Later: Clint x Natasha

**A/N**: Written for the Comment Fic LJ comm prompt by daria234: any, any/any, jumping in a big pile of leaves

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><p><strong>Maybe Later<strong>

"Clint. You're acting like a child." Natasha stood with her hands on her hips on the back patio, a slight disapproving frown on her face as she stared down at him.

Clint sat up in the big pile of autumn leaves he had raked out of the yard just like she asked him an hour ago as he studied the expression on her face. "You've never jumped in a pile of leaves before, have you?" he demanded.

She huffed an exasperated sigh. "That's beside the point. You'll have to rake them all— Clint!"

He managed to drop her in the leaves before her reflexes landed a sharp kick in his side and they both went down. He was laughing. She was sputtering in anger.

For all her mock rage though, Clint knew she'd never had a childhood. She hadn't made snow angels and gone sledding and had pillow fights and, apparently, hadn't jumped in a raked up pile of leaves. He'd had to introduce her over the years to all the fun things she had missed growing up. They sprawled side by side on the ground for a moment.

"Now," he said breathlessly, "you can teach our kids how to do that."

Natasha stared at him. "We bought a house, Barton, not—"

He put a finger to her lips. "I know. Just… think about it."

She picked up a handful of leaves and attacked him.

He decided to take that as a maybe later.


	4. Dance With Me: Clint x Natasha x Bucky

**A/N**: Prompt by likewinning at the Comment Fic LJ comm: MCU, Natasha/any or gen, knives don't have your back.

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><p><strong>Dance With Me<strong>

The other SHIELD agents whisper about Natasha in the halls. They watch her fight Clint down onto the mats and watch her clean her guns and her knives with the same expressionless face she gives them when they throw their jokes around. She is famous for the way every part of her body is a weapon and a tool, the way she used to be legendary for working alone.

It's a lie. It's always been a lie. She's bathed in blood, but knives never had her back.

She fights Clint down onto the mats and in the fierceness of his motion, she feels the ghost of a metal arm and the grip of stronger flesh than hers. She feels her partner's gaze heavy on her when they work as the legendary Strike Team Delta and she remembers the awed hushed whispers that surrounded the Black Widow and her Winter Soldier. They think she does not understand partnerships.

"Dance with me," she laughed as a young girl, red hair flying as James fought her down onto the mats, as she flew against him with fluid speed. "Dance with me," she says to Clint as they spar with limbs and bow and knives and nothing at all but their hands and strength.

She remembers lifting herself en pointe, remembers the fleet steps of couru on the ballet floor alone. But it's a lie. It always has been.


	5. Taken: Maria & Natasha x Clint

**A/N**: Written for the prompt MCU, any/any, best wingman ever on the Comment Fic LiveJournal community by daria234. I wanted to do Clint as the wingman keeping off unwanted attention, then this happened instead.

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><p><strong>Taken<strong>

"I need your help."

Maria Hill dragged her startled gaze up from the report she'd been typing a minute before to Natasha Romanoff standing in her doorway, looking the epitome of calm, cool, and collected. "Something wrong with your assignment?"

A beat of silence, though on Natasha, it didn't look like hesitation so much as a deliberate pause, then the agent came in and closed the door behind her before sitting in the supplicant's seat, as Barton liked to call it.

"Barton's on a deep ops and Fury wants me to work with Rogers."

"Yes," Maria said slowly. None of this was news.

"People forget." Natasha shrugged her shoulders. "He's not my partner anymore."

The places clicked into place, and Maria nearly facepalmed. Natasha and Clint had recently decided to start a romantic relationship and requested reassignment in accordance with regs. Clint's old position as Natasha's wingman to fend off unwanted masculine attention had seemed superfluous in light of that, but Steve Rogers hadn't exactly been involved in a five-year-old betting pool on when the two would get together either.

"I'm sure he saw the two of you... together..." Maria stopped at the look on Natasha's face. "You want me to be your wingman?"

"I want to show that I'm taken," Natasha said, a faint hint of exasperation entering her tone. "I've never done that before."

"Ah. Right." Maria logged off her computer and grabbed her purse. "Come on."

"Where are we going?"

"The jeweler's."

Natasha looked completely calm, but there was something in the way that she moved and... smiled? at the agents they were passing in the hall that told Maria she'd moved to a cover persona, a sure sign this was outside of her comfort zone.

"Relax. It doesn't have to be a ring. We could get a pin or a bracelet or anything that says 'Clint' to the discerning eye," Maria told her. "I've done this before. I got my sister an engagement ring when she wanted to stay single for the four years of college."

Natasha shot her a disbelieving look. "Something understated."

"Yes, ma'am." 

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><p>They bought a necklace. Natasha had wandered the store, then ordered them to bring out their catalog, then hauled off to the other location to retrieve her prize: an understated necklace that on close inspection showed a tiny silver arrow.<p>

"If you need any more assistance..." Maria offered but let her voice trailed off.

Natasha smiled, a genuine barely there smile that belonged to none of her covers. "Never mention it."

"Agreed."


	6. But What About the Wings?: Tony & Sam

**A/N**: For the prompt author's choice, author's choice, I would have liked to try those wings myself at the Comment Fic LiveJournal community by tigriswolf.

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><p><strong>But What About the Wings?<strong>

"What do you mean 'His wings don't work anymore'?" Tony demanded of Steve before Sam had barely made it in the door. "I wanted to try them!"

Steve Rogers gave a very longsuffering sigh and looked pleadingly at Pepper, who focused her attention on warmly greeting Sam Wilson.

"Is he for real?" Sam asked her.

Pepper gave a pained smile.

Steve just gestured between the other two men. "May I introduce the one and only Tony Stark."

"Got that right," Tony agreed.


	7. Hey, Robin Hood: Clint x Natasha

**A/N**: For the prompt author's choice, author's choice, time travel never works by tigriswolf on the Comment Fic LJ community.

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><p><strong>Hey, Robin Hood<strong>

"You know the real problem with time travel?"

"What, Clint?" Natasha asked wearily as she aligned the orange-colored gem just so.

"Besides that this thing is the second-cousin to the Tesseract." He eyed the thing askance.

"Brother probably."

"Could be a sister."

"No. It couldn't."

He shrugged and went on. "Time travel never works, okay? Whatever we've done in the past, we've already done it. We can't _change_ anything."

"Our presence has been detected in the fairytale age, Barton. We're going."

"What _is_ the fairytale age anyway?" He pulls on his arm guard and wishes for his mechanical quiver rather than the plain one, but orders were orders, and at least his weapon of choice wouldn't look out of place.

Natasha disappeared into the bathroom without answering and emerged looking like something out of a movie. "At least we'll know now if Robin Hood really was real."

"I am not pretending to be Robin."

"Whatever you say."

They grasped opposite ends of the time gem, twisted it between them, and disappeared in a flash of orange light.


	8. Double Negative: Pepper x Tony Emma

**A/N**: Prompt by ivotedforsaxon at the Comment Fic LJ comm: Any/any, any/any + any, "Don't look now, but I think that might be my ex." Crossovered slightly with X-Men.

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><p><strong>Double Negative<strong>

"Don't look now, but I think that might be my ex."

Pepper sighed. "Tony. Half of the female population of this city is your ex."

"No," he mumbled next to her. "My _ex_ ex. The one who tried to talk me into taking over the world."

"That's a double negative." Pepper smiled over his shoulder. "You mean Emma Frost, dear. Well, you might as well say hello because she's the CEO of the company we're meeting with."


	9. When Silence Falls: Clint x Natasha

**A/N**: Prompt by icarus_chained for a 6-word story at Comment Fic LJ comm: Author's choice, author's choice, don't be afraid

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><p><strong>When Silence Falls<br>**

"Trust me."

Clint holds Natasha, unhearing.


	10. What Is Mine: Clint x Natasha

**A/N**: Written for the prompt author's choice, I don't need a gun to take back what's mine at the Comment Fic LiveJournal community by ammcj062.

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><p><strong>What Is Mine<br>**

As they hauled Clint's unconscious body away, Natasha considered that Loki had meant for one or the other to kill each other. Certainly, Plan A was for Natasha to be the one to die, but Plan B would have worked just as well: put Clint's blood on her hands and watch her weep.

She breathed in the depths of the Helicarrier, spine straight, heart beating a little too quickly.

She didn't need to kill Clint to take him back. Loki was the neophyte here. Loki had discovered the power to make toys of people and was playing with it like a gleeful, reckless child. Natasha had spent the last several decades proving that a human mind was more resilient than her handlers and makers had ever believed, than Loki would ever believe.

Natasha followed the other agents quietly and went to take her partner back.


	11. Avengers Team Dinner: Pepper x Tony

**A/N**: Written for the Comment Fic LJ comm prompt: MCU, any, The best way to a superhero's heart is through his stomach by classics_lover.

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><p><strong>Avengers Team Dinner<strong>

Tony made a point of welcoming the Avengers to their new tower by building them each a floor, having Pepper do the interior decorating (she volunteered after seeing his first selections), then showering them all with generous gifts that left them wondering if he was entirely sane.

Pepper's method was a little subtler. She cooked for them.

"You should ask _Natalie_ what their favorite foods are," Tony suggested when he passed through the kitchen with his tenth round of coffee. Dummy trailed behind him dutifully on Pepper's orders to make sure he wouldn't get to drink it.

"I'm not spying on them," Pepper pointed out. "They'd feel _less_ trusting if I did that."

No, she made them her own favorite Sunday dinner, the one her mother used to make when she invited over guests after church. It was the first Avengers team dinner, and she told them what each dish was and how her mother used to have her help.

They each thanked her, some more dutifully than others, but at the end of the meal, it was Tony who gave her an eyeful and asked, "Are we all now obligated to share memories?"

Pepper sighed. "No strings attached, Tony."

After that, she found she got along with the Avengers just fine.


	12. Food for Mere Mortals: Darcy, Thor xJane

**A/N**: For the prompt author's choice, author's choice, just a dash of this, just a hint of that by tigriswolf on the Comment Fic LJ comm.

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><p><strong>Food for Mere Mortals<strong>

"A dash! A dash!" Darcy yanked the bottle of cayenne pepper out of Thor's hand and glared. "Mere mortals must be able to eat this dinner."

Jane came in the kitchen and sneezed. "What in the world?"

"It's not of this world," Darcy muttered darkly while Thor just grinned enthusiastically at Jane.

"We are cooking chili!"

"Thor," Darcy used her most commanding voice. "Put on another pot of beans. We need to dilute this."

Jane bravely sampled a spoonful of the chili and turned red. She nodded at Darcy, shot her a thumbs up at the plan, and headed for the fridge and milk.

"Are you all right, my love?" Thor asked, genuine concern in his tone.

Jane nodded, still guzzling milk. She lowered the glass. "More beans," she rasped.


	13. An Untimely Interruption: Tony x Pepper

**A/N**: Written for the Comment Fic LJ comm prompt by evil_little_dog: MCU, Tony/Pepper, A quiet moment (shattered).

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><p><strong>An Untimely Interruption<strong>

Tony was just getting ready to get down on his knees in front of Pepper at the window when suddenly the glass shattered, Pepper shrieked, and both of them dove under a flying projectile.

"What is this?" Tony picked up an... arrow and narrowed his eyes. "Hawkeye!"

"Yes?" two voices asked in unison, one male and one decidedly female. Clint Barton dropped in through the hole in the glass, shaking his head, and shot a disapproving look at the little brunette girl who followed behind him looking sheepish.

"What is this?" Tony demanded.

Pepper started laughing behind him.

"Training," Clint commented dryly. "Apologize, Kate." He gestured to the girl.

"Wait." Tony looked back and forth between them. "There's two of you? Two archers running around in Kevlar doing god-awful things to my architecture."

"Sorry." Kate definitely aimed said apology more in Pepper's direction than Tony's. "Hawkeye didn't mention the arrow could go through glass."

"Well, _Hawkeye_ didn't aim her arrow right in the first place," Clint countered. "Come on. Let's try again."

"Elsewhere," Tony demanded with his sternest voice possible.

Pepper could barely keep the smile off her face but nodded beside him. "Definitely elsewhere."

"I really am sorry," Kate called over her shoulder as Clint shoved her in the direction of the elevator.


	14. Not Again: Clint x Natasha

**A/N**: Written for the LJ Comment Fic comm prompt by creepy_shetan: author's choice, any, take the stairs next time.

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><p><strong>Not Again<br>**

"This is the fifth time in the last thirteen months that you have jumped off a building and claimed it was a decent exfil," Natasha said brusquely. Her hands were even more brusque as she pulled out slivers of glass with the tweezers from hell.

Clint struggled not to wince (did that once, hurt worse than going through the window) and pointed out, "It was that or be roasted by Chitauri."

"And last time?" she demanded archly. "When you jumped off a skyscraper onto a moving helicopter?"

"There wasn't room for both it and me on top of the building. Ouch! J—, Tasha, have a heart."

Her hands pulled back a moment, long enough for him to shake out some of the worst of the tension. He should probably be in SHIELD's medical getting his injuries taken care of, but long habit and limited trust meant they usually stitched each other up and took care of anything less than surgery, neck injury, or head trauma.

"Next time you get tempted to jump off a building," Natasha said abruptly, going back to work on his back, "take the stairs."


	15. Avenging Angel: Natasha x Clint

**A/N**: For the Comment Fic LJ community prompt MCU, Sam/Steve or Tony or Clint or Bucky or Natasha, becoming an Avenger by daria234.

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><p><strong>Avenging Angel<br>**

Natasha was the only one who came for vengeance. Tony was ready to, Clint was close to it, and Thor might have been if he weren't more interested in rescuing his little brother that was and had disappeared behind this heartless trickster.

Loki had taken Clint and taken the free will that had always been his trademark, the one thing that hard living and almost dying and killing too many souls had never taken from him, the one thing he'd offered to Natasha that had the power to bring her in to SHIELD in the first place.

It was unforgivable and unacceptable. Regimes fell every day and Natasha wasn't actually all that interested in avenging the earth if it fell, just one man: Clint.

So she put off her stealth and her espionage mindset and kept the deadliness of her namesake. She became a soldier. She waded into war. She took her vengeance and became an Avenger.


	16. A Benevolent Dictatorship: Tony & Bruce

**A/N**: Written for the Comment Fic LJ comm prompt by icarus_chained: Author's choice, author's choice, "Mad Scientists rule the world. Badly." (Girl Genius).

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><p><strong>A Benevolent Dictatorship<br>**

"Bruce, my friend," Tony interrupted said friend's muttering over a beaker. "You are an excellent mad scientist. We both are."

Bruce glanced up with little interest.

"But you are a terrible ruler of the world." Tony waved off Dummy. "JARVIS, please bring up the stats on India."

"Tony, not now. I'm about to have a breakthrough."

JARVIS obediently began listing the stats for unemployment, medical care, wealth per capita, and everything else for India.

"You said that last week," Tony pointed out. "Pepper has successfully dragged me away from my experiments long enough for me to delegate to her my decisions for what we want done in Africa, but you have done nothing with the one part of the world you asked for. I'm disappointed, Bruce."

This time, Bruce's stare lasted much longer. "Tony. You are an excellent mad scientist. Your puppy dog eyes need work."

Pepper's heels clicked on the floor behind them and both men winced.

"You both rule the world badly," she admonished them. "Dummy."

The bot rolled forward and handed them each a cup of coffee.

"Bruce, I need your decisions on fifteen major action items," she informed him brusquely. "With your permission, I can handle the details from there."

"All right," he muttered and followed behind her.

Tony clapped him on the shoulder. "It's for the benefit of mankind!"

"When was the last time either of you slept?" Pepper asked.

Neither answered, though Tony's flustered hemming and hawing was perhaps more condemning than Bruce's glazed, slightly crazed look.

"That's what I thought." She shooed them into a conference room. "You can run your benevolent dictatorship for the next fifteen minutes, then I'm ordering you both to bed."

Perhaps it said something about who truly wielded the power that both of them meekly replied, "Yes, ma'am."

"You'll join me, right?" Tony begged, applying his puppy dog eyes again.

Pepper laughed softly in return but didn't answer.


	17. Hindsight: Bucky x Natasha x Clint

**A/N**: Written for the Comment Fic LJ community prompt by tigriswolf: Author's choice, author's choice, hindsight is heartbreaking.

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><p><strong>Hindsight<br>**

"I should have taken you with me," Natasha whispered, her breath warm against his temple, her fingers delicately combing through the tangled strands of his hair.

The Winter Soldier leaned back in the hospital bed, pulling gently away from her touch. "Hindsight is perfect, Nataschenka. I don't blame you." Had she asked, he would have turned her down and turned her in. He knew what she did not, that she could never have taken her with him.

But she looked at him with wounded eyes and he could almost taste her regret. "I loved you," she said softly. Her hands knotted together in her lap.

He stared at her, breath catching. Steve was... everything. The Winter Soldier was beginning to remember Steve, remember his best friend, and in turn, remember Bucky, but he wasn't Bucky again just yet and the Winter Soldier had loved _Natasha_. He hadn't even realized until this moment how much he had counted on her being here for him.

Loved. Past tense. Loved.

He looked up, saw her gaze had flitted to the doorway, and followed it with his own to the archer, Hawkeye. She had loved the Winter Soldier; now, she did not.

The Winter Soldier—no, _Bucky_ forced himself to smile. "Your new life suits you."

Natasha gave a small, strangled laugh. "You mean HYDRA masquerading as SHIELD?"

Hindsight was perfect.


	18. First Date wan Acrophile: Maria x Clint

**A/N**: Written for the Comment Fic LJ community prompt by yuidirnt: any, any unconventional/rare pairing, first date.

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><p><strong>First Date with an Acrophile<br>**

"You want me to climb up the fire escape?" Maria Hill repeated slowly because there was no way she hadn't misheard or else that Clint Barton was absolutely crazy.

Clint grinned at her, two beers in one hand, as he swung out onto said fire escape and tossed back at her, "The view's incredible and you said you wanted to watch a sunset."

She swore to herself this first date would be the last one involving a rooftop _ever_ and climbed up behind him, regretting emphatically ever mentioning she loved to watch the sunset.


	19. Stops on the Road to Love: Clint x Tasha

**A/N**: Written for the LJ Comment Fic comm prompt by nevcolleil: Any, any, a love story in three sentences.

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><p><strong>Three Stops on the Road to Love<br>**

The first time they met in Budapest, they started on opposite sides of a complex operation, ended up saving each other's lives in a mutual bid for survival, and holed up afterward in a safehouse, sharing vodka and stories until she told him to call her Natasha and didn't retract when Clint mentioned that was a name between friends.

The second time they met, Clint dragged her out of a burning hospital _(she'd lit the match, she was guilty, and her ledger dripped)_ and held her on a safehouse floor as she wept for the dead children and her own memory of a burning building before the Red Room came to take her away.

The third time, Natasha saw him lower his bow and hold out his hand with a simple request to come with him, stay with him because they made each other whole _(and he loved her but he didn't say it, and she loved him and she did)_.


	20. You See, It Was Like This: Clint & Darcy

**A/N**: Written for the prompt by yuidirnt MCU, any, someone smuggles a kitten inside the Avengers Tower in the Comment Fic LiveJournal community.

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><p><strong>You See, It Was Like This<br>**

"Why," Pepper called out as she came around the corner to stop in front of Darcy's desk, "is Agent Barton hiding in the vent above your desk?"

Darcy shuffled papers as she struggled to come up with a non-incriminating answer that didn't involve, "We weren't up to any funny business or anything, I can promise you; it's just that Clint found this baby kitten all alone in the rain outside and looking like a drowned rat and—"

"You'd make a terrible spy," Clint interjected dryly from the vent above Darcy's desk while the aforementioned kitten, now dry, mewed in agreement.


	21. Tearless: Natasha & Yelena

**A/N**: Written for the Comment Fic LiveJournal community prompt by tigriswolf: Author's choice, author's choice, the women in the two black veils didn't bother to cry. Ambiguous 'verse. Could be comics, could be MCU.

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><p><strong>Tearless<br>**

The women in the two black veils don't bother to cry: the one on the left has blonde hair and is called Yelena, the one on the right has red hair and is called Natalia, and the man going into the ground is Alexi, the Red Guardian, Natalia's husband.

"He died for the glory of Russia," they had told her and called her the widow when introducing her to her new handlers.

Natalia hadn't loved him, but he had been hers. and as she stood tearless beside his grave as the dirt when over him, she decided to learn what she could from these men who bartered and sold her and her skills, then she would extract payment for taking Alexi from her.


	22. Nobody Does Shopping Like Tony Stark

**A/N**: Written for classic_lover's prompt for a 3-sentence fic in the Comment Fic LiveJournal community: Any, any, let's go shopping.

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><p><strong><strong>Nobody Does Shopping Like Tony Stark<strong>**

"Pepper," Tony demanded, "where are you going without me?"

Natasha and Pepper dissolved into giggles, a certain sign that Natasha was practicing a new cover (and why had he invited the super-spy into his Tower again?) and this would not go well unsupervised, but only Pepper answered, managing her usual no-nonsense tone she gave him, "We're going shopping."

"I see," Tony answered and smirked before pulling on his shades, holding out his arm, and announcing, "I can do shopping."


	23. I'm Fine, Really: Tony x Pepper

**A/N**: Written for nevcolleil's prompt on the LJ Comment Fic comm: Any, any, what he or she would say about his/her death if he/she knew exactly how/when/etc. he/she would die.

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><p><strong><strong>I'm Fine, Really<br>****

Tony rolled his eyes at Pepper's illionth pointed reminder that day that excessive amounts of alcohol were bad for the liver and the good judgment that was intrinsically necessary to flying an iron man suit or driving a car.

"Pepper, I'm not going to die from cirrhosis," he reminded her, "or a vehicular accident. It is inevitable that I am going to die for mankind by intentionally sacrificing myself for the greater good, which this"—he held up the bottle pointedly—"is not; so love you, but no, I'm not going to stop drinking tonight until I'm good and drunk."


	24. Interview wHistory: Steve, Bucky, Tasha

**A/N**: For tigriswolf's prompt on the Comment Fic Livejournal community: Avengers movieverse, Steve + Bucky, my place is with my brother.

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><p><strong><strong>Interview with History<strong>**

"You want to bring a known HYDRA threat and keep him in my Tower?" Tony asked incredulously in that understated rambling voice he used when he had no intention of being anything other than _the_ Tony Stark. "I know you've been through a lot lately, Captain, but have you seen your therapist?"

Steve was immovable. "I'm bringing him in."

"This isn't a stray dog, you know," Tony went on with that I'm-being-oh-so-reasonable stream of words, "or even a super-spy slash assassin like Barton or Romanoff. I hear they bring them in all the time, but this is a HYDRA assassin who doesn't even remember you."

"It's Bucky. My place is with him."

A long sigh. This really wasn't the best way to handle this conversation, over the phone with Steve and Bucky outside the locked gate while Tony kept it locked and stared at them through the security cameras.

"I'm going to regret ever giving you a suite here, aren't I?" Tony said. "No, I'm not because I already do. Hang on a sec."

He held the phone away but it didn't actually stop his yelling from carrying through. "Romanoff! Romanoff. Do you want this guy in here? I'd feel much more comfortable if I knew he wasn't going to kill us in our beds."

After a very long moment, Natasha's voice murmured something soft to Tony the phone didn't quite catch. She was staring at the security camera monitors.

"James?"

Another very, very long moment.

Steve said, "Hang on a sec. Okay, say it again."

"James."

A breath, a heartbeat, a hesitant pause.

"Natalia." It was Bucky's voice, and it sounded as hesitant as his breath.

"Nat's frowning over here, buddy," Tony said. "Try again."

"Natashenka."

A sharp inhale, followed by a slow exhalation. Natasha dropped the phone with an audible thump into Tony's hand. "Keep him."

"D—" Tony muttered and unlocked the door.


	25. Forging Anew: Clint x Natasha

**A/N**: Written for likewinning's prompt on the Comment Fic LJ comm: Avengers movieverse, Natasha, We Disappear.

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><p><strong><strong><strong>Forging Anew<strong>****

"All my covers are blown," Natasha had told Steve, speaking the truth on the surface, content to say no more. She didn't tell him that all her covers had been blown before. She didn't tell him that she'd had to make herself all over again after she defected. She didn't tell him that he really couldn't change her nature of adapt, blend, fold herself into another different truth or lie—disappear.

She made a new cover within three days and walked out with ten blank passports and IDs and five filled with possibilities. She bought an engagement ring, laid her one-time Russian accent on thick, and showed up as an immigrant bride where she knew Clint was holing up. She even managed to get a smile out of him when she did.

"You always knew how to make a cover," he told her, shoving over a cup of unholy black coffee across the table.

Natasha sniffed at it, passed, and gave a pointed look at his forging materials spread out in a mess between them. "Like you don't."

He shrugged and held out his hand.

She tossed him the matching ring.


	26. A Bargain for Futures: Clint x Natasha

**A/N**: Written for likewinning's prompt Avengers movieverse, Natasha/any or gen: _(I am not a child.) (But you have not known love.) (These are my ghosts, the spaces amid love.)_ (from _Everything Is Illuminated_) on the Comment Fic LJ community.

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><p><strong><strong><strong><strong>A Bargain for Futures<strong>******

"You can make a different call," the archer had told her, the American, always so certain of his ground.

"I'm not a child," Natasha growled back as they walked down a narrow alleyway in Budapest. "Don't appeal to my innocence."

He stopped, leaned back his head, and counted to ten in... Latin?

She decided at that moment that she needed to learn Latin.

"How long are we going to do this dance, Widow?" he finally asked, dropping his head to stare at her intently but somehow imploringly.

They had met a few times when he was still a freelancer, once or twice on the same side of an operation, once or twice on opposites. They'd only met twice since he joined up with SHIELD. Hawkeye was a colleague she tolerated, despite his odd proclivity for _finding_ her if she happened to be anywhere in the same area.

He stepped forward, his gaze and nearness suddenly palpable.

She stepped back.

"I could appeal to your affections," he said easily, mouth quirking in a small but noticeable grin.

Natasha sniffed. "Love is for children."

"Your friendship then," Hawkeye countered. "We are friends, right?" He leaned an arm on the brick wall beside her.

She looked at him and sighed. "You never give up, do you?"

"Nope."

He had always liked it when they fought on the same side of an operation. She hadn't. He bumped into the ghosts and spaces left inside her that the Winter Soldier had used to fill. Natasha may have put aside love, but she was not so heartless as she let on.

"When you have me dead to rights with an arrow and I _cannot_ escape," she told him, "I will accept your offer."

"Either that or the other country, huh?" He smiled, couldn't seem to even help himself. "You like me better than death."

She liked him better than almost anyone, but Natasha only smiled, stepped on tiptoes, and murmured in his ear, "In your dreams," before she left him chuckling behind her.


	27. Sixth Time's a Charm: Bucky & Natasha

**A/N**: For likewinning's prompt Avengers movieverse, Bucky Barnes (/any or gen), I guess this personal hide-and-seek is not unusual. And some people are 'it' all their lives - hopelessly it. (from East of Eden) on the Comment Fic LiveJournal community.

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><p><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong>Sixth Time's a Charm<strong>********

"Five times you've put a bullet in me," Natasha growled in Russian and downed her vodka. "Five times and you think I will let you share my space again."

Steve stared back and forth between her and Bucky, not quite understanding the flickers of confusion then recognition on Bucky's face.

"Five times," Bucky said slowly, in English.

"You shot me when I asked you to leave Russia with me," she reminded him, pointedly keeping the Russian. "You shot me when I left without you. You've been tracking me down and sticking bullets in me ever since. Hide and go seek. I keep hiding and you keep showing up, and now you want to be an Avenger?"

Bucky stared at her, brows drawn together in a dark frown of concentration. Finally he huffed out a sigh and said, again in the _English_ everyone else staring at their interchange could understand, "Natashenka, you know you would have done the same."

She studied him coolly. Natasha had always been able to hold her liquor well.

"You can shoot me. Will that make you feel better?" he demanded, exasperated in the way he'd often been when she was a little spitfire in training and he was the unlucky comrade ordered to train her.

She cocked her head, considering that. "If we play this game again, I will."

He leaned forward and gave her a peck on the forehead. "Agreed."

Clint leaned back and shook out his newspaper. "And that, Tony, is why I told you I don't make her mad."


	28. That Invisible Invincible Strength: Thor

**A/N**: For likewinning's prompt on the Comment Fic LJ comm: author's choice, author's choice, They were all slender, frail creatures with wondering eyes and soft fluttery voices. But they were made out of thin invisible steel. (A Tree Grows in Brooklyn).

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><p><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong>That Invisible, Invincible Strength<strong>**********

Thor was always careful with Jane when he wrapped her up in his arms and held her close. She and those born of her world seemed so fragile and frail to his Aesir sensibilities, so easily broken, but then he would see what his fellow guardians in Midgard, the Avengers, could accomplish on the battlefield and watch his beloved Jane bend knowledge to her will with the strength and understanding he had seen in his mother, and Thor would think to himself that though these mortals were frail, they were made of invisible, invincible steel.

"You were wrong, my brother," he told Loki as they broke bread on one of his visits. "They are not weak, and they will never be ruled."


	29. Made of Secrets: Bucky x Natasha

**A/N**: For likewinning's prompt author's choice, author's choice, We are survivors, of each other. We have been shark to one another, but also lifeboat. That counts for something. (Cat's Eye) at the Comment Fic LJ comm.

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><p><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong>Made of Secrets<strong>************

Natasha paused in the doorway of Bucky's new suite at the Avengers Tower. She crossed her arms and studied the small amount of detritus the man had brought with him. She watched his back stiffen as he registered her presence.

So much tension, so much history. They had been lovers; they had been enemies. They had lost each other; they had lost themselves. But in the end, they'd survived.

"Stark likes to surveil the premises," she said, something of a peace offering. It was intel he would appreciate.

Bucky looked up, nodded, but his eyes told her he wasn't listening to the words quite as much as to what she was packing in behind them. "You never liked to give away your secrets."

Natasha was made of secrets. She stepped in, walked about the perimeter, and returned to stand before him. "You have many of mine."

He breathed out for a long moment. "Do I?" His metal fingers flexed. "I don't—" He didn't say it. He didn't say he didn't remember. He looked up and frowned. "I know you. That counts for something, doesn't it?"

The words were as toneless as hers, but she stared almost expressionlessly into his almost expressionless face and heard there the flickers of sorrow, regret, and hope. She rested one hand over his, the metal one.

"It counts for something," she told him.


	30. For the Sake of the Hawk: Tony & Clint

**A/N**: Written for ciaranbochna's prompt at the Comment Fic LJ comm: Any, any, FOR THE SAKE OF PRISONERS AND THE FLIGHT OF BIRDS.

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><p><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong>For the Sake of the Hawk<strong>**************

"There's a hawk in the local jail?" Tony asked as he padded into the dorm kitchen barefoot and bare-chested from his bedroom. "Isn't that animal cruelty or something?"

Bruce handed him a cup of coffee. "Not a hawk—Hawkeye. That guy in archery that Nat's dating. Remember him?"

Come to notice, Tony could see Nat, Natasha really, sitting at the kitchen table wearing a scowl and a pair of black boots she'd planted atop said table. She'd made friends with Bruce their first of year of college when they were assigned as study partners and started swapping stories about all the countries they'd visited. Tony's stories had been met with much less enthusiasm.

"So why do we care again?"

Natasha muttered something darkly in what was probably Russian and downed the last of her own cup of coffee.

Bruce elbowed Tony lightly. His look said, _My friend, remember?_

"Yeah, yeah, so what'd he do?" Tony went back for a second cup of brew.

"Steve cleaned it up," Bruce started, "but there was some graffiti of...um...inappropriate stuff about Natasha, Maria, Pepper, and some of the other girls on the boy's locker room wall."

At the mention of Pepper's name, Tony was all ears. "And?"

"And Clint went and shot paintball arrows at all of the offending players while they were in their jerseys," Natasha finished. "He should have let me do it," she muttered darkly again. She stared at the bottom of her empty mug as if it had offended her.

"Well, did he now?" Tony figured only Clint would be stupid enough to get between the girl and her target, but hey, they couldn't all be birdbrains. "For the sake of prisoners and the flight of birds, let's go get our hawk!"

Bruce blinked at him. "Uh, Tony?"

Natasha smirked. _"My_ hawk."

Tony grabbed his wallet without argument. Stupidity. Targets. Dangerous Russian female. "Whatever you say, sweet pea. What's his bail?"


	31. If I Can: Bucky x Natasha

**A/N**: For nevcolleil's prompt at the Comment Fic LiveJournal community: Any, any, "I been waitin' to smile / been holding it in for a while / I'll take you with me if I can / been dreamin' of this since a child..." (Partners theme song).

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><p><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong>If I Can<strong>****************

"James?"

The Winter Soldier looked up from cleaning his weapons against their return to the Red Room. Natalia was looking at him with that serious-faced mask she always wore when she was real, nothing but flickers of expression about the edges.

They both had times and seasons, days and hours when they became someone else and smiled or laughed as needed. It was part of being a spy. But Natalia did it better than he did. He only needed brute strength and skill. She needed to slip between personas as though they were her very self. When she took them off, there were no smiles underneath.

"Natalia." He set aside his gun and held out his arms so she could slide into them and settle on his lap. Her fingers wound tight into his hair; her forehead leaned against his.

"I'm leaving," she said.

He froze. She should not have told him this, his Natalia, his little flame. If they asked him, he would have to answer.

"They won't ask you," she whispered, her gaze steady and strong. She had read his worry in his eyes and the fractional tightening of his metal grip. "I want... James. I'll take you with me if I can."

The Winter Soldier looked at this woman who had once been a little girl dropped into the Red Room's arms from out the window of a burning building. He looked at what had grown from the girl he had trained and guarded among the other Black Widow candidates and their handlers. He looked at the light burning in his darkness between the freezings.

"You can't," he said flatly, certainly.

Under her soft trembling, there was steel that told him Natalia would do what needed to be done. She would leave without him.

He let her go, pushed her arms gently from him, and stood. She would go and she would smile and become the woman that little girl should have had not Ivan caught her and brought her to the Red Room and the KGB. She would go and leave the Winter Soldier in his dark prison because not even his Natalia was skilled enough to break him free.

"If they send me after you, I will kill you," he told her honestly, desolation in his heart if not his tone.

He saw the trembling leave her. She breathed in the Russian air. "You will try," she said. She breathed out.


	32. Laid Bare: Clint x Natasha

**A/N**: Written for mahmfic's prompt on the Comment Fic LJ comm: any, any, he felt completely naked, having all of his/her secrets exposed.

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><p><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong>Laid Bare<strong>********************

Natasha had only been laid bare twice.

The first time was when she realized she had no secrets left from Clint that mattered on the night they'd shared a blanket on a cold desert floor and he'd opened up his own vulnerabilities and painful past. She'd shared one last thing, one last painful secret to complete the exchange, then inhaled sharply with the knowledge of what she had done. He leaned back and she felt the muscles in his back tense against hers. His fingers wound through hers and she breathed again.

He had laid her bare, completely naked and exposed. It was an intimacy that went far deeper than sex and the reason their relationship never really took romance into account.

The second time, Natasha had been shielded only by the armor of her anger and love for Clint. She could forgive Clint for exposing her every secret to the malicious cruelty of a god of thieves and liars. She could accept that her precious trust had been stolen and abused and trampled on. She would never forgive Loki for doing it.

_"He told me everything,"_ that insidious whisper purred. Exposed, laid bare, compromised.

She tucked herself into Clint's arms that night after the battle and made new secrets that Loki would never be privy to.

Now Natasha stood by Steve's side without her other half and his hand tightening on hers to give her strength. She was laid bare and alone and exposed with all her secrets revealed to an entire world. She had given all to SHIELD and repentance and the cleaning of her ledger, but HYDRA had stolen even that. Now the world knew she was a liar and a killer, easily susceptible to being wielded by the wrong hands.

Never again, she promised herself. The walls went up and her hand touched the arrow at her throat. She had unfinished business, new secrets and selves to layer over her true self—Natasha—secrets the world would never know.


	33. You Put the Pep in Pepper: Pepper x Tony

**A/N**: Written for classics_lover's prompt on the Comment Fic LJ comm: Any fandom, any redhead + any, "I'm not ginger, it's called _strawberry blond(e)_."

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><p><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong>You Put the Pep in Pepper<strong>**********************

"So are you a natural redhead?" were some of the first words out of Tony Stark's mouth, followed by a smirk. "I absolutely love the ginger look."

Pepper Potts had already decided that despite Stark's reputation for being unable to keep a personal assistant for longer than a month (due to being an absolutely unreasonable, impossible boss to babysit, regardless of his overly generous tendencies), she would be the exception and stay. This generally involved biting her tongue on dozens of viable responses to put him in his place and taking none of his excuses and distractions from her doing her job of making him do his.

"So I'll go ahead and confirm your ten o'clock and have your suit ready in twenty minutes."

He rambled on without pausing from applying a wrench to machine parts. "I don't think I'm going to go. They can deal with you for the day. They'd much prefer it anyway."

"Twenty minutes," Pepper repeated, making him look up, eyebrows raised. "And I'm not ginger. It's called strawberry blonde." She smiled at him, shut the door behind her, and went to track down his suit.


	34. Everything Else Between: Natasha x Clint

**A/N**: Written for daria234's prompt on the Comment Fic LJ comm: MCU, Natasha/Clint, Clint is the only one who knows her real birthday.

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><p><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong>Everything Else Between<strong>**********************

"Barton," Natasha opened with as she dropped onto the bench beside him at the edge of the SHIELD gym. She sighed and toweled off her neck and shoulders.

Clint looked up at her from packing in his gear but needed no words to tell her he was listening. Her choice of name was telling enough about her mood.

She took a swig from the water bottle he'd set out beside his bag and swallowed hard. "When's my birthday?"

"Two months, three days from now," he answered perfunctorily, dispensing with his questions on why she needed to know. If she'd been willing to field questions, she would have called him Clint. "Anything else?"

Natasha shrugged, then cocked her head thoughtfully. "Am I allergic to peaches? I can never remember which."

"Pears."

"Ah."

Exchange complete, she shot him a dazzling smile and he grinned back at her. He slung the bag with his quiver and bow over his shoulder, and they walked out side by side companionably. It had to be Maria, he figured. Maria loved to make peaches and cream.

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><p>"So when's your birthday?" Maria prodded her friend for the umpteenth time. Natasha was notoriously stingy about handing out personal information, and Maria had been trying for years to get more than a ballpark figure out of her.<p>

Natasha shrugged. "Fall. Any time I'm in the country is fine. Peaches are a go."

Maria sighed. "Fine. I'll tell HR to plan a convenient day instead of the actual one. _Again."_ There was discretion—a necessary trait in a successful covert operative—and then there was Natasha. It's not like a simple birthday, year of birth excluded was valuable intel if you weren't trying to throw the woman a party.

But Natasha nodded brusquely, Maria's frustration noted but ignored, and headed out for anywhere that wasn't SHIELD and knowing Natasha, that served ice cream.

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><p>Natasha was stingy with personal information for many reasons, not least of which was that she didn't remember most of it. She and Clint had spent weeks after her defection poring over her file and sorting memory from fact, implanted knowledge from actual truth. She never remembered her food allergies unless she remembered turning down foods because she was allergic. She had never even known her birthday until Clint suggested they should celebrate it. She'd had to dig backwards through the pages until she found the date.<p>

She ordered strawberry ice cream and found a seat, waiting until Clint inerrantly found her and slid into the seat across with a chocolatey concoction called rocky road.

"So what do you want to do on your birthday?" he asked. He was the only one that knew the actual day. It was a day they always spent together.

"I'm feeling nostalgic," she commented. Under the table, she tucked one foot up on the edge of his chair. "Lisbon."

The city where he'd made a different call—on her birthday, an unwitting gift on both of their parts.

He grinned at her and stuck a spoonful of ice cream in his mouth.

They ate in companionable peace. They didn't need words between them. They had everything else.


	35. Blinding Properties of Love: Nat x Clint

**A/N**: For the prompt Avengers movieverse, Clint/Natasha, who you are is not where you've been; who you are is not what you did by tigriswolf on the Comment Fic LJ comm.

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><p><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong>The Blinding Properties of Love<strong>**********************

When Clint walked into the bathroom, Natasha was standing in front of the mirror, wrapped in a towel and staring at her own reflection. She met his reflected gaze as he came behind her to wrap his arms around her waist.

"You know what I see?" he asked quietly.

He didn't miss much, never had. Even years after they had settled into training their successors, young Avengers, and retired from the field, years after age should have begun to dim his legendary sight, Clint had never been more Hawkeye than in the quiet moments like this when he held her and looked into her eyes until he puzzled out what was going through her head.

Natasha looked at him questioningly.

Clint obliged. "I see a mother." He kissed her shoulder. "And wife. I see the most compassionate, caring, loyal, capable woman I have ever met."

Ten years ago, she would have retorted some comment about the blinding properties of love. It wasn't ten years ago. Her life had changed, she had wielded Mjolnir for a brief time in a battle, and her ledger finally was as clean as she'd ever be able to make it. She looked in the mirror, frowning, trying to see this person he described.

"I still see the Black Widow," she said. She considered herself candidly. Her own children had never really known that side of her, but even now, she would don it easily to protect those she loved.

"Who you are isn't who you've been or what you've done," Clint told her. He rested his chin on her head and waited a beat for her to acknowledge hearing him. "You are the person you've made yourself to be, and no one who has ever worked with you or been your friend would call you that now."

She blinked. She stared at her reflection, the still red hair, the mouth she could still turn to lies. But there was truth there and much closer to the surface than it had ever been before.

She turned in his arms, stood up on tiptoes, and gave him a kiss. "You never did play by the rules," she murmured.

"Would that be the rule that no one gets to know the real you or the rule that no one makes you fall in love?" He smiled softly, eyes crinkling with good humor.

"Your children were born degenerates," she countered. She had fallen in love with them before she could hold them in her arms.

"They never had a chance," he agreed and finally kissed her.

She didn't feel like the Black Widow. At all.


	36. Tell Me Who I Am (to You): Nat x Bucky

**A/N**: Prompt by likewinning at the Comment Fic LJ comm: MCU, Bucky/any, song lyrics of Prague

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><p><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong>Tell Me Who I Am (to You)<strong>**********************

"That is a lovely dress," James noted.

His stare was intense. Natasha enjoyed the heaviness of his gaze upon her. She pulled up the thin red straps and smoothed the skirt over her hidden knives, then shot him a small, coy smile.

"The mark likes red," she told him, as if she didn't know perfectly well that James liked red on her too.

Something flickered in his eyes, but he turned that intense gaze of his back to the window. He was casing the street before they left the hotel room. He was the Winter Soldier, untouchable to the young woman he had spent so long training.

Natasha studied the unreadable line of his jaw, the tense alertness in his posture. She couldn't quite read him, as good as she was, the best Black Widow produced by the program so far. She could bed the Winter Soldier, draw him in with a gaze, a look, a pretty red dress that clung to her curves, but she could never know if she was comfort or love to him, a haven in the storm or just a pretty mark and trainee he kept under control with his regard.

Silence stretched. He looked over at her, seeming curious that she had not filled it with the lighthearted voice of her alias as she slid into her cover. _Something_ flickered in his eyes and she wondered, for just a moment, if she was the only one that didn't know.


	37. Asgard, We Have a Problem: Nat x Bucky

**A/N**: For evil_little_dog's prompt at the Comment Fic LJ comm: MCU, Any+Any, We are gonna sacrifice to and pray to every god in this world that he doesn't find out about her sleeping with his old roommate.

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><p><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong>Asgard, We Have a Problem<strong>**********************

"Thor!" Tony's voice echoed through the communal floor. "Thor! We need you!"

Thor shouted back from the kitchen. "The food is not finished!"

Clint appeared around the corner with a furtive look in his eyes. "Team meeting before the cap gets back. It's an emergency."

Thor looked puzzled but turned off the stove and set the griddle to one side. He followed Clint into the living room where Bruce was rubbing his face with one hand, Tony had ruined his hair by raking one hand through it, and Sam was shaking his head over crossed arms while muttering darkly.

Tony plunged right in, gesticulating wildly as he spoke and paced. "You know Steve's been totally wrapped up in this search for Bucky, then rehabilitating him and all that, and all was fine and good, even if I did have to share a floor of the Tower that I'd rather have kept for other things, but now we have a real problem because our resident Russian spy neglected to mention her old history with Bucko and this could be very, very bad."

"Old history?" Thor asked.

"Yeah," Clint commented as he dropped on the couch. He was the only one not looking concerned and had probably known the details of this 'old history' long before he'd ever met Steve. _"That_ kind of history."

"She told Steve she knew about him," Sam added, "but she never mentioned she _knew_ him."

"And we are gonna sacrifice to and pray to every god in this world that Steve doesn't find out about her sleeping with his old roommate," Tony summarized. "So Thor, you're it."

"I don't think that falls under the god of thunder," Bruce pointed out mildly.

"Fertility, relationships... Same difference, right?" Tony looked at Thor again. "But if you know a better choice, I'll take a reference."

Caught flat-footed, it took a moment for Thor to think about who was good at what sort of problem, but nothing in his history seemed to find deity the right approach to this. "Mother?"

"We'll take it."


	38. Tea is Tea: Natasha x Clint

**A/N**: For with_rainfall's prompt at the Comment Fic LJ comm: Any, any, microwaving cold tea

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><p><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong>Tea is Tea<strong>**********************

"Barbarian," Natasha hissed and whisked the cup of cold tea out of the microwave. "You reheat tea on a stove."

Clint just gave her that easygoing shrug of his and kept running down the mission brief. "Tea is tea."

Natasha had been pouring the cup into a glass coffeepot, but she paused and sighed. "This isn't even tea, is it? This came out of a teabag."

That stopped him. "Well..." He saw her look and let the words trail off.

To Clint, tea was tea, but to Natasha, vodka was only vodka if it was the 'good' kind from Russia and tea was only tea if it had been brewed up properly from loose leaf.

He closed the laptop and came around the counter to fish out a bag from the pantry. "I'll make you some tea."

"You do that."


	39. Remember When: Bucky

**A/N**: For tigriswolf's prompt in the Comment Fic LJ comm: author's choice, author's choice, an amnesiac is given their old diaries to read through; they don't recognize the writer at all

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><p><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong>Remember When<strong>**********************

Steve had given him a stack of journals to read. It was a long slog of interesting but dated stories of decades ago, but he kept reading because Steve had asked him to and he wanted to stay here with Steve, which meant letting Steve make the rules until he could remember for himself.

But it really was tedious.

When the man introduced as Bruce walked in, glad for the excuse, he set the current journal down on the couch beside him.

"How many books did this guy write?" he asked with a weary sigh.

Bruce hesitated.

Bruce's eyes tracked to the kitchen, and he noted the mug in Bruce's hand. Coffee? Tea? Tea. He nodded to himself. Bruce liked tea.

"Why don't you ask Steve that?" Bruce brought out very slowly.

He scowled. He liked Steve but he wanted to make other friends too, even if Steve was the only one who seemed to remember him. He shrugged and picked up the journal again. He flashed a tight and totally insincere smile. "I'll just keep reading."

Bruce stayed hesitant in the living room for a little longer before finally making his way to the kitchen in silence.

The clock ticked loudly.

He was tired of being the only one who didn't know any answers.


	40. Remind Me Not to Tick You Off: NatxClint

**A/N**: For cghardy's prompt on the Comment Fic LJ comm: any, any, cleaning up after a messy kill

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><p><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong>Remind Me Not to Tick You Off<strong>**********************

Clint whistled under his breath as he lowered his bow. "I take it you needed to vent?" he asked dryly. He kept close to the windows of the abandoned warehouse where he could keep an eye out for hostiles.

Natasha glared at him and went back to pouring oil over the...decidedly messier kill than her usual. She stripped out of her dress and tossed it into the pile.

Clint sighed and went for his bag to dig out some spare clothes.

"I'm burning the mess," she said curtly.

He watched as she shimmied into one of his shirts, but he didn't comment. She had taken out some kind of frustration or anger on the mark, and she clearly didn't want to talk about it, which of course meant she _ought_ to talk about it, but did it look like Clint had a death wish? He'd nag her after she'd put the knives away and climbed into a bathtub to soak.

Wordlessly, he passed her a match. The fire was spectacular. 

* * *

><p>"Feeling better?" Clint asked ten hours later when they were both throwing off dirty clothes from weary bodies.<p>

Natasha's long sigh as she eyed the bathtub was as close to satisfied and contented as he expected it to get tonight. "I do actually." She glanced at him, lifted a brow when she saw his expression, then gave that small smug smile bordering on a smirk. "It was rather therapeutic." She stretched catlike before sinking into the tub.

"Better than bubbles?"

"Better than bubbles," she agreed. She pulled him down beside her as he climbed in. "But not better than you."

"So what was that about anyway?"

Natasha surprised Clint by not only allowing his arm to drape around her shoulders but also by snuggling into him and humming contentedly as she did. "He told me all the things he was going to do to destroy you."

Clint leaned back with a groan. "One godling wannabe does not give you leave to be overprotective."

"I wasn't." That was definitely a smirk. "I was ticked off."

And heaven help the poor soul who made her genuinely angry. Natasha's dispassion was legendary.

He aimed his next words carefully, having frequently been numbered among those poor souls. "Remind me not to steal the covers in the morning."

She shot him an annoyed glance. "That's different."

"See." This time, Clint was the one giving a smug grin. "Overprotective."

"If I wasn't exhausted, I'd be ticked off now." But Natasha didn't budge a centimeter from her snug resting place.

"No, you wouldn't," he murmured, kissing the top of her head.

She did not disagree.


	41. The World is Too Much: Maria & Natasha

**A/N**: Prompt: Any, Any, Things only end so that they can begin again by doreyg on the Comment Fic LiveJournal community. Title taken from the poem "The World Is Too Much with Us," a sonnet by William Wordsworth.

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><p><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong>The World is Too Much With Us<strong>**********************

"So SHIELD is gone," Maria said quietly, fingers turning her shot glass as she stared at the wall on the other side of Natasha's new apartment.

Natasha sighed and leaned forward to snatch up the vodka and refill her own glass. "See how long that lasts."

Regimes fell every day. She tended not to weep over that.

"It didn't matter who took it down, Maria. It was going to happen eventually." She shook her head at Maria's disbelieving look. "Outside or inside, it was still just another enemy. We'll move on."

"Fury's going to give it to Coulson." Maria gave the vodka slightly disgusted look. She'd been Deputy Director for years, and she'd done right by Fury and SHIELD. Perhaps it shouldn't have mattered to be overlooked, but it did.

"Coulson's still an idealist," Natasha pointed out.

"You should have heard him." Maria sighed. "He couldn't believe it was over."

They fell silent a moment. The bottle exchanged hands, glasses were refilled, and wordless comfort settled between them.

Finally, Natasha broke the silence. "We're realists, and the Avengers always was his baby."

"I never believed in it."

"This world needs realists." She glanced over at her friend.

Maria looked like she was brooding, helped along by too much alcohol, but then she laughed. "I guess it's too much to think Fury does."

"Sure he does," Natasha disagreed. "Just not as the new founder. SHIELD needs to rebuild, and that's going to take time the world doesn't have. We're going to keep doing what we've always done."

"I'll drink to that." Maria leaned forward and held out her glass to Natasha.

"A friend wouldn't let you drink any more," Natasha commented dryly. "You're drunk."

"A best friend would hand me the bottle."

Natasha smiled and did.


	42. Soft and Sweet: Clint x Natasha

**A/N**: Not prompted, but where else would I stick it?

* * *

><p><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong>Soft and Sweet<strong>**********************

Her body is soft in places it didn't used to be. Clint remembers firm muscle and sinew, and now there is this slight curve of her stomach under his hand.

"You should see yourself," she says softly into the morning.

They are still half-tangled together on the bed.

"Your eyes look like you've never seen anything so wonderful." Natasha smiles at him, just that soft hint of expression as her stomach is still that soft hint of a curve in her first trimester.

He leans over and kisses her belly through his splayed fingers. Clint never told her how much he wanted children. Too risky, too dangerous, and too heartbreakingly unlikely and impractical, he'd given up on that dream so long ago that it took an accident like this to make it happen.

"I love you," he whispers to the child inside of Natasha—_his_ child.

Love is for children, and Natasha's smile stays as her fingers card affectionately through his hair.


	43. Word of Advice: Tony & Steve & Clint

**A/N**: Prompt by sapphire2309 at the LJ Comment Fic comm: any, any, We Do Not Touch The First Ladies [Scandal].

* * *

><p><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong>Word of Advice<strong>**********************

"Buddy," Tony stopped the new intern with a hand on his shoulder, then patted it amicably. "Word of advice. We do not touch the first ladies. I like you and I'd like you to stick around."

"But—"

"Now look over there." Tony looked pointedly but did not gesture or otherwise attract the attention of Pepper, Maria, and Natasha discussing something quietly among themselves. "Unless you are assisting one of them because they specifically asked you for something, do not touch the first ladies. Do not bother them. Do not interrupt them or pester them with any questions. Find your immediate supervisor and ask for help."

"But I was told—"

"Trust me on this one, buddy. Ignore what anyone else tells you. They're lying maliciously or ignorantly." Tony nodded very, very seriously to underscore his words. "Now you know the truth."

The intern glanced helplessly toward the three women, then back to the message in his hand. Captain America had told him very specifically to deliver this to them. "I'll go ask my supervisor."

"Good lad." Tony patted him on the back then headed around the corner to throw up his hands at Steve glumly passing Clint a ten dollar bill.

"I told him word was getting around," Clint said with a grin.

"People _used_ to trust me," Steve muttered.

"You mean before they realized you were human?" Clint shook his head and grinned at Stark. "You do realize you threw the whole thing though." He passed back the ten. "Fair's fair, Cap. Bet you can't get that new receptionist to break up their party."

"You're on."


	44. Remember Me Later: Clint x Natasha

**A/N**: Prompt by daria234 at the LJ Comment Fic community: Any, any, "Who the hell are you?"

* * *

><p><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong>Remember Me Later<strong>**********************

"Who the hell are you?" The Widow stared at the archer.

The archer stared at the Widow. Finally, he asked very, very quietly, "Who are you?"

She flinched back from him for a long moment, then stepped forward and caught his jaw in her hand. He let her. How did he know to ask that? She could see the knowledge in his eyes that she could kill him without breaking a sweat if he let her get this close.

"Natalia," she said at last. This one knew her like none of the men at that base had and he wouldn't be killed as easily either. "Your name?" she asked coolly.

He breathed in slowly, not at all shaky but very aware that she was still gripping him threateningly. "The last time you introduced yourself that way I was Hawkeye."

He stared into her gaze with an intensity that made her catch her own breath at last and hesitate for just a fraction of a second.

She dropped her hand to her side. "I don't trust you."

"You didn't then either." His reply was easy, comfortable; he knew what ground he was standing on now, but he wasn't smiling. It would irritate her if he was.

Natalia sighed and started down the sidewalk. Her hands were clean now and her clothes new, but she still knew nothing at all except that she had woken in a holding cell, restrained and shaking with interrogation drugs, she had fought her way out, and it was easy because she had been a weapon for a very long time.

"I will buy you lunch then and you can tell me about the last time." It wasn't a request, but he didn't seem to mind.


	45. Your Beautiful Lies: Clint x Tasha

**A/N**: So I'm behind on TONS of crossposting and have moved my primary posting to AO3, except for longstanding WIPs, which I intend to get back to after Yuletide.

Prompt by hufflepuffsneak for Be Compromised Promptathon: Natasha thinks she's a better person around Clint. Clint thinks she's been that person all along. They're both wrong.

Also prompt by likewinning for the LiveJournal Comment Fic community: MCU, Natasha, Are You Now Or Have You Ever Been [Angel]

* * *

><p><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong>Your Beautiful Lies<strong>**********************

"Can you wipe out that much red?" Loki had asked.

Natasha, Natalia, Black Widow looked at Loki with the appropriate expression for the part she was playing, but inside, she was unmoved. She had always known that the answer was no.

* * *

><p>Clint does not believe in impossibilities. He positions his arrow and stretches the bow taut, lining up sight and target. He never misses, never fails.<p>

She is the Black Widow and even her record is not so perfect.

Clint does not believe in impossibilities. When she is with him, Natasha does not either.

* * *

><p>She loves to watch his hands as she does sit-ups and push-ups and crunches; Clint is sitting across the living room, waxing his bowstring, fletching his arrows, cleaning his guns. There is something soothing about watching the play of tendon and muscle in his hands as he works. He is solid in the way that she is a blank sheet of paper to be laid flat and formed into whatever origami shape she determines is necessary. He is unmoveable and strong.<p>

Natasha unfurls abruptly onto her feet and comes over to sit beside him Indian style and lean her head against his knee to watch, fascinated by a weapon he has made part of himself that is not himself. She is a weapon and she has weapons, but she has nothing like his bow.

Clint says nothing. He does not need to, and the silence between them settles comfortably.

It is almost strange, an eerie edge inside of her, that she can relax like this and let herself be human. She is a better person around Clint. She is a person at all.

* * *

><p>She asks him the week after her arrival at SHIELD why he spared her life.<p>

Clint looks at her with narrowed eyes and tilted head in puzzlement. "You said it yourself. You're a weapon."

Natasha stares at him blank-faced and wonders what he means.

* * *

><p>Natasha is a weapon. She slides open a mission brief and pulls on the person it requires her to become. Clint watches her back, loves her life more than his own, protects her, and cares for her as his partner. He waits until she takes the person off and becomes the weapon again to love her for herself.<p>

Natasha used to be a knife without a sheath. Now she knows that Clint can hold her and not be cut.

* * *

><p>"I feel like a person with you," she tells him four years into their partnership, ten months into his bed. It's idle talk, pillow talk, soft words breathed on each other's skin.<p>

He looks up at her with dark eyes and that puzzled frown. "You were always a person, Natasha."

* * *

><p>He thinks he saw a person when he aimed an arrow at her heart. He thinks she knew the difference between right and wrong when he made another call.<p>

Natasha looks at Clint sometimes with blank-faced dismay for all the reasons he gives for having trusted her. They are lies, but they are beautiful.

She strives to live up to his lies. She knows what he sees when he looks at her, and she knows inside herself that he created her from his belief. She hangs this person she is becoming from his reasons and lets him anchor her.

A weapon has no morality.

* * *

><p>"Tasha, I love you," he rasps as blood pours out of his body.<p>

It is cliché, she tells him, to admit such things while dying. It is unacceptable. She will not do cliches with him, so he must live.

* * *

><p>Natasha, he names her, unthinking, unconsidering of the gift he gives her, then Tasha, then Nat, then Tash. He watches her back and lends her his strength. She finds a taste of morality by imitating his.<p>

_I feel like a person with you, Clint_, she tells him before she tells him by choosing right over wrong until she even starts to care.

* * *

><p>"Do you know what it's like to be unmade?" Clint asks her, eyes dark with hurts raw and bleeding still.<p>

She turns to him without expression and answers, watching him carefully as he bandages his wounds with her presence, her understanding, then the ability to anchor her still.

Natasha does not ask him, because she too knows the answer to her own question, if he knows what is like to be made.

* * *

><p>Clint has always been the anchor in their partnership as she has always been the driving force. They are thrown off balance after New York because he is the blank sheet of paper too rough from being lived in to lay flat and fold into a new shape.<p>

She tries to find the lines within her own self to show him, but there are no lines. She is smooth and formless until she pulls on another necessary person. She always hung herself on him.

* * *

><p>Natasha is training like there are ghosts haunting her, like guilt dogs her steps in the wake of the battle. Everyone looks for Clint's dark form shooting arrows into his past and future, as if that will help him cope, but it is Natasha who beats against the punching bags and targets like she can destroy the pain and fear within her if she just fights hard enough, long enough.<p>

She always thought she was a better person around Clint because he made her the person she can call her own, but perhaps she isn't, perhaps she was wrong, perhaps it is only his strength and not hers that made her choose right over wrong and balance out ledgers and fold herself like a shelter around him in what others might call love.

Natasha leaves the gym and goes to Clint's room to pound on the door until he yanks it open, startled and worried, and drags her into his arms. Even now, he finds it easier to protect another than to heal himself.

"You spared my life because I was a weapon," she tells him.

He gives her that puzzled frown, then it falls away beneath something hard and hurting. "It's not the same, Nat."

But it is the same. It is. She said it herself.

"A weapon has no morality."

* * *

><p><em>Are you or have you ever been only a weapon, Clint?<em> she wants to ask him three months into their partnership, two weeks after their first kiss, five days into what could only be called their relationship. She does not ask because the answer is the same as hers to his: _Are you or have you ever been your own person, Natasha?_

No.

* * *

><p>The answer changes after Loki.<p>

For both of them.


	46. Do You Really Believe That?: Clint x Nat

**A/N**: Prompt by tigriswolf at the LJ Comment Fic comm: Author's choice, author's choice, books are dangerous and reading is freedom.

* * *

><p><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong>Do You Really Believe That?<strong>**********************

Natasha had to be careful when and where she read books, but after that first taste (reading out loud to a mark who liked to drift off to her voice; bad idea), she _had_ to read more. Inside the Red Room, her material was all carefully selected to round out her training and indoctrination, but on the job, she used her covers to procure any book she could get her hands on and form her own opinions on the world around her.

Everyone thinks Hawkeye trailed her spectacularly for fifteen cities before cornering her at last. Actually, she discovered his book collection and trailed him to borrow from it until she sat down across from him (he spewed his coffee when he saw his mark, the Black Widow, slam his own well-worn book on the table) and demanded if all that American tripe about freedom was true.

He blinked. "Yeah?"


	47. Beneath This Human Skin: Clint & Barney

**A/N**: Prompted by oh_mcgee at the Comment Fic LJ comm: Any fandom, any brothers, he invents the monsters underneath the bed to get you to sleep next to him.

* * *

><p><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong>Beneath This Human Skin<strong>**********************

Clint is your little brother, and his arms are even scrawnier than yours. You try to make him eat food—"Come on, squirt"—but his eyes drift to your father's whiskey bottles, and you see the sick fear in his eyes.

You're not strong enough to protect him. You try anyway. Your father calls you mouthy and beats you when he's drunk, but it's hard to care as long as Clint is curled up silent somewhere high and safe.

He invents the monsters underneath the bed to get you to sleep next to him. Both of you know, but won't admit, the only monster in the house is human.

When your father's car wraps around a tree and both of your parents are found dead, when the two of you are orphaned too young and have nowhere to go, when everyone except your little brother is gone, you feel only sick relief, and it makes you wonder for just a moment if the only monster is you.


	48. The Good Books Speak Latin: Nat & Bucky

**A/N**: Prompt by tigriswolf at the Comment Fic LJ comm: Avengers movieverse, author's choice, "Bucky, don't speak Latin in front of the books."

* * *

><p><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong>The Good Books Speak Latin<strong>**********************

Natasha and Clint had moved in on the library table at the Avengers Tower, Clint's feet propped up on it, Natasha's propped on his chair, and the entire surface of table and nearby floor covered with heaps and stacks of their selections.

Steve ushered Bucky in to hunt up a modern encyclopedia and froze when he saw the two of them muttering.

Bucky opened his mouth, but Natasha cut him off with: "Bucky, don't speak Latin in front of the books."

It was an open secret that Natasha spoke Latin, but nobody had thought that extended to Bucky.

Clint shot a questioning glance his way.

In English, Bucky complained, "That's the right language for a library."

Natasha sighed and muttered something in Russian. A book flew to her hand. "Stick to that bookcase over there then where my books are. Stark keeps dangerous things in here."

Clint held up a manual on explosives with a grin. "It's a very obedient book too."

"Hawkeye," Steve admonished. "Come on, Bucky. Over here."

Bucky fixed Clint with a meaningful gaze.

Clint promised in Russian Sign Language to show him where the good books were later.


	49. Love Potion, Use with Caution: ClintxNat

**A/N**: Prompted by allwasnew at the Comment Fic LJ comm: author's choice, author's choice, I'll put a spell on you You'll fall asleep when I put a spell on you And when I wake you I'll be the first thing you see And you'll realize that you love me (Aqualung, Strange & Beautiful)

* * *

><p><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong>Love Potion, Use with Caution<strong>**********************

"Well, it didn't work," Tony said decisively. "And you're just going to have to put up with it."

Natasha glared at him. "No, I will not," she told him over crossed arms. "We are going to hunt Loki down and make him undo this..." Words clearly failed her as she looked at Clint who was smiling up at her with a sappy grin. "Stark. He's my partner, not my hopelessly smitten suitor."

"I'd take advantage if I were you," Darcy commented matter-of-factly. "He's seriously hot."

Natasha refrained from answering. She was glad she _was_ the first person Clint saw after he woke up from his Loki-love-potion-induced coma because she had hunted him down with all the determination a partner ought to have and because she was certainly the only person she trusted not to take advantage of Clint's currently besotted state.

"She is taking advantage of it," Maria pointed out mildly. "I've never seen him so obedient."

He was sitting still and on the other side of the room without talking because Natasha was tired of trying to make him stop clinging and stop declaring his undying love and that would have been a plus if it hadn't brought her to: "And exactly why would your brother give him a love potion in the first place, Thor?"


	50. Out of Step: Clint (crossover)

**A/N**: Prompt by tigriswolf at the CommentFic LJ comm: Author's choice/author's choice, author's choice, Character A is reincarnated as Character B – but keep everything canon

* * *

><p><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong>Out of Step<strong>**********************

"So I used to be Hansel, as in Hansel and Gretel Hansel?" Clint looked disbelieving at Thor, who shrugged.

"You were ahead of your time in weaponry then," Thor said easily, warming to the subject. "You had this one gun..."

"Gun? An actual gun?" Tony demanded. "Isn't this the guy using a paleolithic stick and string?"

Clint swore under his breath. It was just his luck he actually _knew_ someone long-lived enough to have known him in a previous life. "I don't even believe in reincarnation!" he muttered.

Natasha shrugged. "It's just like you to use the unexpected weapon."

"Thank you," he retorted to the room, still not sure if it was entirely a compliment but taking it as one anyway.

"I would have said 'out of step,'" Tony teased.

Clint aimed his pen and fired.

"So," Thor interrupted Tony's protestations of grievous injury. "Your aim was quite as good then. There was this one gun..."

Natasha giggled and Clint leaned his head back on his chair. He would never live this down. Never.


	51. No Place Like Home: Clint x Natasha

**A/N**: Prompt by tigriswolf from the LiveJournal Comment Fic community: author's choice, author's choice, losing track of the correct address because they've lived so many places

* * *

><p><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong>No Place Like Home<strong>**********************

"Where are my ballet slippers?" Natasha's voice echoes from the bedroom where she's sorting through the boxes SHIELD posted to their latest European address.

Clint glances up from the packing list he's going over on the counter. "Should be in Box #22." He eyed over the list carefully, satisfied when all seemed in order.

Natasha appeared in the doorway looking frazzled and worn and ready for a break.

He passed her a water bottle.

"There is no box #22," she said before taking it.

"I'm sure there is." He flipped through the sheets. "See. Right here."

Natasha frowned at the list and ran her finger over the boxes she'd set up to ship, then the ones he had. "Clint." Her voice dropped in that slightly disappointed sound he hated. "What address did you send these to? I didn't see any of these boxes."

"I know my own address," he groused.

Her look cut him no slack, a sure indication of just how tired she was. "Last year, you shipped the piano to Tokyo."

"We were going to be in Tokyo," he reminded her.

"But not with a piano," she reminded him back and raised an eyebrow.

Clint shrugged and mumbled off the address he'd used.

She groaned.

"What?"

"That was the place we used last time we were here." Natasha shook her head, expression fond, and picked up the phone. "I'll call Coulson and try to catch the movers. Order dinner."

All forgiven, he switched to the telephone book. "Pizza."

"Real dinner," she called over her shoulder.

"Pizza." He dialed and grinned at her annoyed expression as Coulson picked up and stopped her from answering.


	52. Avengers and Agents of SHIELD in 6 Words

**A/N**: Prompted at the LiveJournal Comment Fic Community and all plunked here. Some double and triple fills as well.

* * *

><p><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong>Avengers in Six Words<strong>**********************

Prompt by classics_lover: Agents of SHIELD, any(/any), Lola

**Paintball Disaster (Nat/Clint)**

"We're doomed."

"Car's still red."

"Doomed."

* * *

><p>Prompt by effingeden: Any; AnyAny; Last words to a lover

**Marching Orders**

"You're not allowed to die, Hawkeye!"

Clint grimaced. "Never did follow orders."

* * *

><p>Prompt by effingeden: Any; AnyAny; First words to a lover

**A Vision (Natasha/Clint)  
><strong>

"Am I in heaven?"

"Concussion."

"Oh."

* * *

><p>Prompt by elfgirljen: any, any, Adrenaline junkie<p>

**Adrenaline Rush**

Reasons Clint joined SHIELD: heights, stakes.

Reasons Natasha joined SHIELD: Clint, freedom.

* * *

><p>Prompt by tigriswolf: author's choice, author's choice, ever after<p>

**Benefits Package (Natasha/Clint)**

One arrow then never alone again.

* * *

><p>Prompt by tigriswolf: author's choice, author's choice, beget<p>

**Children**

Clint always hoped for real family—family he didn't have to kill.

* * *

><p>Prompt by tigriswolf: Avengers movieverse, Loki, burn<p>

**There's No Place Like Asgard (to make you want to leave)**

He's ice who's only known burning.

* * *

><p>Prompt by evil_little_dog: Any, Ornamental<p>

**The Female Gaze (Pepper/Tony)**

Tony makes the _best_ arm candy.

* * *

><p>Prompt by tigriswolf: author's choice, author's choice, remembered<p>

**I Had a Date**

"You didn't forget me."

"Never, Peggy."

* * *

><p>Prompt by tigriswolf: author's choice, author's choice, forgotten<p>

**Forget My Sins in Budapest**

"You almost died," Clint reminds her.

"You saved my life," Natasha corrects.

* * *

><p>Prompt by tigriswolf: author's choice, author's choice, lips as red<p>

**Partners 101**

The Black Widow's lips were as red as her hair: Clint never kissed them. Natasha never wore lipstick.

* * *

><p>Prompt by classics_lover: Author's choice, author's choice, "Wheeee!"<p>

**Winter Sports**

"My shield is not a sled!"

* * *

><p>Prompt by classics_lover: Author's choice, Do Not Touch<p>

**Lola**

"Slowly back away from the vehicle."

Jarvis added, "I advise immediate compliance, Sir. The suit may not survive."

* * *

><p>Prompt by tigriswolf: author's choice, author's choice, golden<p>

**Deaf**

They say that silence is golden.

Clint signs to Natasha, _They lie._

* * *

><p>Prompt by oh_mcgee: Avengers movieverse, Bucky+any, knife

**Playing with Knives (they're just not like the rest of us)**

Natasha and Bucky play catch.

"Duck!"

* * *

><p>Prompt by cashay: MCU, Natasha, after the fall<p>

**The Widow Shrugs**

"Don't you miss SHIELD?" they ask.

"I _said_ regimes fall every day."

* * *

><p>Prompt by cashay: MCU, Bucky, alive<p>

**We're Not at the End of the Line**

He just won't die.

Steve's alive.

* * *

><p>Prompt by evil_little_dog: Any, Any, power<p>

**Anything for You**

Natasha smiles, and Clint says yes.

* * *

><p>Prompt by cashay: MCU, Clint, missing<p>

**Try Again**

"Where's Clint?"

"You check the roof?" Darcy asked. Thoughtfully, "Or Natasha's bed."

* * *

><p>Prompt by classics_lover: Author's choice, not good<p>

**This Looks Bad (Clint)**

"Is he dead?!" the worried Avengers demanded.

Natasha shrugged. "I've seen worse."


	53. Pitiless: Bucky x Clint x Tasha

**A/N**: Prompt by cashay at the LJ Comment Fic community: MCU, Bucky/Clint/Natasha, there's just something about having your brain scambled that brings people together.

* * *

><p><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong>Pitiless<strong>**********************

Clint woke because someone very strong was holding down his wrists. The grip was hard enough to bruise and the... not skin of one hand was cool instead of warm.

He opened his arms and realized belatedly he was still trying to thrash in the covers and his lungs couldn't quite catch enough air. Disassociation. He didn't even know what he was fighting and he fell still, staring up at James holding him down on the bed.

Soft red hair fell against his cheek and he turned his head toward Natasha, who leaned closer, murmuring against him.

"Clint," she said softly. His name in her mouth held sentences and paragraphs and whole books they had written in more cities than they would ever count. "They're not blue."

Tension he didn't even know he'd been feeling ran out of his body. As he relaxed, so did James. The metal hand slid off his wrist and settled reassuringly behind his head.

The three of them pulled closer together, breathing in the darkness of night. Tonight, it was Clint's nightmares waking them; tomorrow, it might be Tasha's or James'. They had been there separately, minds unmade and unraveled, and found in each other that wordless understanding to remake themselves into something better, stronger.

Natasha tucked her head against Clint's shoulder, fingers tracing lightly over his chest. James tightened his hold around both of them, metal clenching into a fist against Clint's hip. Clint pitied whatever enemy tried to fight the Winter Soldier for them, as he pitied Loki for earning the Black Widow's vengeful grudge. He pitied no one who dared hurt either of them.

"Night," he said quietly at last. _I'm okay. We're okay. Nightmare averted._

He closed his eyes and slept.


	54. First: Nat x Clint & Barney

**A/N**: Prompt by marlex at the LJ Comment Fic comm: any, any, first kill

* * *

><p><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong>First<strong>**********************

Firsts are supposed to be big moments. Clint barely even remembers his.

First kiss was some girl at the carnival. Then he might have thought it would be true love, but months later, he was far more involved in holding onto his brother than a girl whose name he no longer remembers.

First sex was worse. A haze of alcohol and drinking because he legally could. There was a stranger and awkward embarrassment in the bed, and honestly, Clint _tried_ to forget that one.

First kill was survival and saving his boss who didn't deserve saving from another petty crook interested in their pot. It got lost somewhere in all the other people trying to kill Clint and the other arrows he shot into... how many?

The first kill didn't even rate compared to ten times into playing lookout and getting used to blood when he brought down some other crook's lookout and his gut clenched, realizing it was Barney.

Barney Barton. His brother.

And that wasn't even a first either. First time he saw his family maybe, almost, (almost certainly) die had been his parents in a car crash that left him numb and more frightened for his own survival than grief-stricken for the family he'd lost.

The firsts don't trip him up, don't send him reeling into a range where he can knock down his ghosts by nailing them into a target with an arrow.

His firsts don't matter like that unnumbered time in Budapest that Natasha took a bullet for him and nearly died on him when others _had_ died for him and it didn't even matter. His firsts don't matter like Barney going down with an arrow ten times in, but he'd never counted the bodies.

First marriage ends in divorce. First SHIELD partner lasted three weeks. First, first, first.

"You're the first person I ever trusted," Natasha tells him.

He laughs and catches her hand. He won't be the first to break her heart. (He hopes he never does.)


	55. Switching It Up

**A/N**: prompt by yuidirnt at the Livejournal Comment Fic comm: any, any, truth or dare [50 words]

* * *

><p><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong>Switching It Up<strong>**********************

"You can't always pick dare, Widow," Clint groused, not that _he'd_ picked truth even once.

Natasha sniffed and raised her eyebrow at Steve.

He hesitated.

"Come now, share some more deep truths, Captain." Tony grinned.

"Dare."

Which is how Steve ended up hanging off the roof by only his shield.


	56. Not Happening: Clint x Maria

**A/N**: Prompt by allwasnew at the LJ Comment Fic community: any/any, any/any, blind date (50 words)

* * *

><p><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong>Not Happening<strong>**********************

This was _not_ happening.

Maria frowned as Agent Clint Barton blinked at her, the only sign of his matching bewilderment, before he came close enough to ask, "You know Sharon?"

Maria scowled. "I know Sharon."

They both wondered though how well that she'd match up _them_ for a blind date.


	57. Naming a Russian Assassin's Black Cat

**A/N**: Prompt by allwasnew at the LJ Comment Fic comm: any, any, unlucky (13 words)

* * *

><p><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong>On Properly Naming a Russian Assassin's Black Cat<strong>**********************

"Liho is not unlucky," Natasha stated, cuddling the cat. "His enemies are."

"Right."


	58. Intel Before Participation: ClintxMaria

**A/N**: Prompt by yuidirnt at the LJ Comment Fic community: any, any rare and/or unconventional pairing, unexpected soulmates/soulbonding [100 words]

* * *

><p><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong>Intel Before Participation<strong>**********************

Maria decided this conversation should only be had with alcohol and made a mental note to add 'no alien ceremonies without full intel, including those of Asgard' to the employee handbook.

"Our souls are bonded," she repeated.

If Barton had made a snarky comment in that moment, she wouldn't have felt responsible for her reaction, but he (thankfully) sighed instead, then offered, "I've got your back?"

She smiled slightly. She could trust him to do that anyway. "No one ever needs to know."

"Agreed."

"And we can date other people."

Barton hesitated.

Maria frowned.

"Sure. Why not?"

She sighed, relieved.


	59. Obedient: Clint & Natasha

**A/N**: Prompted by amai_kaminari at the LJ Comment Fic comm: any, any, command (100)

* * *

><p><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong>Obedient<strong>**********************

"On your knees."

"Bow."

"Kneel."

Clint had stayed at the back of his mind, watching himself commanded and following Loki's orders like a well-programmed robot. Even Stark's robots had more autonomy than he did right now.

"Tell me everything."

"Do as I say."

"Obey me."

Clint had never been obedient.

* * *

><p>"Wake up," Natasha ordered in sheer frustration. She had railed and ranted and wept at her partner (by her standards anyway) and still he showed no signs of coming to with Loki gone from behind his eyes.<p>

Finally she sat beside him and asked, "Clint. Please."

He woke up.


	60. Like Any Other Little Boys: Thor & Loki

**A/N**: Prompt by yuidirnt at the LJ Comment Fic comm: MCU, Thor &/Loki, bonding time [40 words]

* * *

><p><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong>Like Any Other Little Boys<strong>**********************

They're thrown outside to play just like any other pair of dirty, scrappy little boys. Loki stares at Thor and Thor stares at Loki.

"We could practice our wrestling?" Thor offers, cheerful like a puppy.

Loki sighs deeply. "Or not."


	61. Espionage 101: Coulson

**A/N**: Prompt by tigriswolf at Comment Fic Livejournal community: author's choice, author's choice, history will not vindicate you

* * *

><p><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong>Espionage 101: Prepare to Be Misunderstood<strong>**********************

"We're the good guys," Coulson says, but there's something behind it, something in the back of it that every spy recognizes.

History won't vindicate them.

"If everyone knew everything we did, we wouldn't be very good at our jobs," he adds.


	62. Watchful, Awake or Asleep: Clint & Tasha

**A/N**: Prompt by leni_ba on the Comment Fic LJ comm: any. any/any (or any&any). sleeping together, but not sleeping together.

* * *

><p><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong>Watchful, Awake or Asleep<strong>**********************

Everyone thinks Clint and Natasha are sleeping together, and well, technically they are.

"Don't you dare steal all the covers again," Natasha orders imperiously, but only earns a casual chuckle in reply.

They are partners: they wrap themselves around each other, protective against nightmares and the dangers of the world they live in (life would never be safe for someone like them), but they are partners and not lovers, and that is simply that.


	63. Serious Business: Maria & Clint

**A/N**: Prompt by yuidirnt at the LJ Comment Fic comm: MCU, any, caught in the act

* * *

><p><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong>Serious Business<strong>**********************

"I knew it was you," Maria growled out as she held the thief at gunpoint.

"Please put down the gun," Clint asked calmly.

"After you put down the Nespresso."


	64. Granolith: Agents of SHIELD & Roswell

**A/N**: Prompt by leni_ba at the LJ Comment Fic comm: any. any. "I don't know what this is, but I'm sure you can end the world with it." Crossover with Roswell.

* * *

><p><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong>Granolith<strong>**********************

"I don't know what this is," Simmons begins.

"But I'm sure you can end the world with it," Fitz finishes.

Most of the team stares up at the silvery cone inside the chamber. May is still checking out the broken pods between the entrance and the strange room.

"I'd say some sort of birthing chamber," she comments.

"Perhaps this room provided heat," Simmons guesses, "or some environmental purpose for it."

Coulson shakes his head. "Skye, we got the tip from the FBI. See what else you can find in their files."

Skye salutes. "Sir, yes, sir."

They go to work.


	65. Two Immortals in a Bar: Q & Loki

**A/N**: Prompt by leni_ba at the LJ Comment Fic comm: any. any&any (from 2 different fandoms). "You won't believe the things I've seen." "Oh, I think I will." Crossover with Star Trek

* * *

><p><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong>Two Immortals in a Bar<strong>**********************

They are both acting like humans, trying out the most boring and mundane of pastimes for a week while serving out their temporary sentences to mortality. (Neither of them really stays on good terms with their respective people.)

"You won't believe the things I've seen," Loki tells his fellow at the bar.

Q throws his head back and laughs. "Oh, I think I will."


	66. Trigger: Clint & Natasha

**A/N**: Prompt by draycevixen on the LJ Comment Fic comm: Avengers, any, Loki took Natasha not Clint.

* * *

><p><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong>Trigger<strong>**********************

Loki doesn't realize that Clint knows _everything_ about her. He knows the words to speak to reset her programming and knows every secret trigger wrapping around her memory.

"Love is for children."

It's knives and using his bow to snap her back before she can kill him. She falters beneath the onslaught of his whispered words, close enough no audio on the security system can catch it.

The tesseract reclaims her with bright blue.

"Love is for children."

He slams her hard to the floor and she stares up at him with bewildered eyes before she succumbs again.

"Love is for children," he whispers and grips her wrists against the floor.

"Clint," she whispers back. Natasha. His Natasha.

Loki is fighting for control. Something happens and Natasha howls, a wounded cry.

"Love is for children."

She's with him. The tesseract isn't fighting him any more.

Natasha clutches his hand and whispers, "Clint."

He does not loosen his grip. "Natasha..." Leadingly, pleading without pleading.

"Love is for children," she answers back.


	67. Falls from tremendous: Steve & Bucky

**A/N**: Prompt by tigriswolf at the LJ Comment Fic comm: Avengers movieverse, author's choice, there always had to be a Captain America and a Winter Soldier. Who they were, though? Always up in the air.

* * *

><p><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong>Falls from tremendous heights<strong>**********************

Steve... 

...fell,

slipped from his fingers, and he takes up the shield to honor his friend, but he can't, he just can't be the man that Steve was and

he falls...

through the ice.

It's fitting, that Bucky should die if Steve does. 

* * *

><p>He doesn't die. <p>

* * *

><p>They wake him up and they believe with all their hearts that it's Captain America they dragged out from under the ice, and Bucky takes up the shield again to honor his friend and his brother in arms. To the end of the line that should have ended decades ago. He's not entirely sure what keeps him going except the knowledge that if Steve <em>were<em> alive, he'd want to do what's right, and he wouldn't stop fighting. 

* * *

><p>Steve...<p>

...fell,

slipped out of Bucky's fingers and yells as the air rips down around him. He's going to die. It's the end of the line at last. 

* * *

><p>He doesn't die. <p>

* * *

><p>They wake him up, and he only remembers his name (<em>Steve,<em> he tells himself desperately. _Bucky called him Steve._) for twenty days before they wrap his arms in metal grips and put the bit between his teeth. He's screaming even before they take his name, his memory, _Bucky..._

They wake him up and put him to sleep and in between, he wears a mask and a metal arm. He's a weapon, a tool, until they give him a mission where everything changes.

Target: Captain America. 

* * *

><p>They fall, but they do not die.<p>


	68. Fly: Clint x Natasha

**A/N**: Prompt by leni_ba on the LJ Comment Fic comm: any. any. Their drug of choice

* * *

><p><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong>Fly<strong>**********************

They're assassins. They can't afford to lose their edge, so they don't—

drink coffee,

or alcohol,

or take drugs,

or especially drink alcohol—

unless the mission calls for it, and sometimes not even then.

Clint throws himself over the edge of a skyscraper, arrow nocked and flying off the string with his grappling hook. Natasha throws herself over the edge with less to hold her, less to trust in than a bow, but her hook holds steady as they swing into each other under the stars and laugh together from his balcony.

The adrenaline pounds through their blood.

Their fists meet flesh, and they dance with real, unblunted weapons, knives curling into openings near each other's dangerously vulnerable rib cages. Their feet catch and trip each other up. Clint flips with a carnie's grace. Her legs wrap around his neck and he goes limp so she'll remember not to kill him.

The adrenaline courses through their bodies.

They find themselves slammed against walls, clutching each other too fiercely, too hard. Fingers leave bruises, teeth leave marks on each other's skin and hips and stomachs and her head goes back and he surges forward.

The adrenaline washes away the blood-slick memory and heat of the firefight, the dull ache and grief for the dead.

They cannot afford to lose their edge, so they don't.


	69. Mum's the Word

**A/N**: Prompt by imera at the LJ Comment Fic comm: A yellow sticky note: "Don't say a word about what happened!"

* * *

><p><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong>Mum's the Word<strong>**********************

Yellow sticky note on the refrigerator with carefully typed words in a font that "looks like" handwriting: Don't say a word about what happened!

Pink sticky note on top of it two hours later, stamped with: Word

A white note pinned to the communal corkboard and written in Black Widow's delicate cursive: Tony and Clint, neither of you are subtle. We already know it was you.

A yellow sticky note in an almost illegible scrawl next to the white note: What was us?

A blue sticky note with neat straight handwriting on the inside of the door to Tony's lab: That's what she wants you to ask. — DL

A pink sticky note on the refrigerator: That's what we want you to think.

A pink sticky note on the headboard over Steve's head when he wakes up with the biggest migraine he's ever had (he never should have tried Asgardian mead—ever; and wasn't he downstairs last time he checked?): You owe us. Big time.

A green sticky note attached to the middle of the television screen in the media room: The cleaning ladies are expecting a very large tip. Tony. — Pepper


	70. Cannot Save You Now: Clint x Natasha

**A/N**: Prompt by mahmfic at the LiveJournal Comment Fic community: any, any, Only Break What's Yours (title by Meddalarksen and victoriousscarf)

* * *

><p><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong>Cannot Save You Now<strong>**********************

_Only break what's yours._ It was the simplest rule of the Red Room and more fundamental than anyone ever suspected, one failsafe among many written into the human weapons the Room created.

She allowed the Winter Soldier to make her or break her because she was his. She allowed the Red Room to go on standing because she was the Room's; it was not hers.

Clint was hers, not Loki's, _hers,_ and the rule was simple: only break what's yours. 

* * *

><p>Natasha carefully scaled the Avengers Tower with her Widow's gear and, reaching the window she wanted, coaxed her security system to behave itself and let her in. She stripped quickly in the dark and saw Clint sleepily lift his head from the pillow.<p>

"Go back to sleep," she murmured, one hand stroking over his shoulder as she slid in beside him.

He studied her for a long time, the intense scrutiny showing no sign of abating.

She pressed her hand harder against his wrist. She couldn't sleep with someone, anyone, watching her, not even Clint, but he shook his head and twined his fingers into hers, co-opting the grip.

"You were talking to Jane." It wasn't a question.

Natasha didn't answer questions he would not ask. She snugged her head against his shoulder and felt him reach up around her to brush his fingers through her tangle of short curls. She was talking to Jane. She had a mission, and this target was hers.

Clint finally let out a sigh. "Thor won't like it."

But it wasn't Jane that Loki had broken, however briefly; it was Clint, so Thor had no say in how she exacted payment.

A beat of silence, then she answered at last, "I know.


	71. Two Shall Be One: Clint x Natasha

**A/N**: Prompt by evil_little_dog at the LJ Comment Fic comm: MCU, Natasha+/Clint (or +any), It's Where My Demons Hide (title by Ash'Kagan)

* * *

><p><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong>Two Shall Be One<strong>**********************

"Love is for children," Natasha tells Loki and Maria takes her aside later, concern furrowed between her brows, and asks if she was lying in there. It's a well-known fact that Natasha has no problem throwing herself to the (soon to be dead) wolves for the sake of a mission.

Natasha just looks at her.

"You're good enough for love, not just a debt." The frown is still there between Maria's eyes.

Natasha just gives that bare hint of a smile that says to her friends and coworkers, _This is me, I'm fine, I've got your back, I know you have mine._

Relieved, Maria lets it alone. 

* * *

><p>"Barton told me everything," Loki tells Natasha and Fury takes her aside later, concern furrowed into a deep scowl, and asks just how much potentially compromising intel did the demigod get. It's a well-known fact that Natasha knows intimately far too many state secrets of far too many countries she worked for or brought down (or both).<p>

Natasha just looks at him.

"He had the clearance for it," Fury reminds her, scowl only slightly mitigated.

Natasha just throws him a faint huff of a sigh and reminds him back, "The truth is not all things to all people all the time." A material point. It's easier to deceive with a truth than a lie.

Mollified, Fury lets it go. 

* * *

><p>"You're a triple impostor, I've never seen anything like it. Is there anything real about you?" Tony demands and Natasha takes herself aside later over a nearly broken cover, anger coiled under her skin, and pounds fists and feet into her partner until she feels a bit better. It's a well-known fact that Natasha prefers to vent by sparring, not talking.<p>

Clint just lets her.

Other agents wonder how anyone could accept her, could love her, if they know the horrible things she has done. Other agents assume he either doesn't know or that her reputation has been greatly exaggerated.

_Can you wipe out that much red?_ a demigod will ask her one day, and she will never bother to answer the question. Her ledger is the one real thing about her, and she gives it to Clint so he can hide the bodies. He doesn't know what her mission target was in Sao Paolo, but he knows the collateral damage. He doesn't know the backdoor hack into the KGB that Natasha used for years, but he knows how much blood she shed on their behalf. He doesn't know the keys to her kingdoms, but he knows how to silence the bones rattling in her closet.

They finish their fight, their hands and eyes examine each other for injury, and they move as though they are a single person in two bodies, perfectly in sync.

When he loves her, when he hates her, when they are angry, when they are hurting, when the affection burns between them like a beacon up in flames, they are partners. Only children love without condition. Only partners guard each other's lives whether they love or not. 

* * *

><p>She is not afraid to love, to gently cradle him with her voice in the aftermath of Loki until she knows she holds his demons and they will not trouble him again.<p>

She is not afraid to hate, to kill the creature Loki made him into unless she's absolutely certain he is not that creature anymore.

She is not afraid to walk away, to spend months in an empty bed, with an empty comm while she works her missions and plies her skills.

"Barton's been compromised," Coulson tells her and she is not afraid to come home.


	72. Rose Red, Thorn Sharp: Clint x Nat

**A/N**: Prompt by leni_ba at the LJ Comment Fic comm: any. any/any. To Risk the Thorns (title by EightofSwords)

* * *

><p><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong>Rose Red, Thorn Sharp<strong>**********************

"Such a lovely rose," the costume designer fawned. "You are a most magnificent creature."

Clint covered his mouth with one hand and restrained a cough/laugh as Natasha shot him an irritated glance that was all in her eyes. With the rest of her face, she smiled as though she really were the actress she was claiming to be.

Their mark only slept with starlets, and it wasn't that much work to make Natasha an aspiring actress, not with her considerable skills at espionage.

The designer was flipping through dresses and holding them against Natasha. "We shall find something worthy of your bloom, you shall see," he reassured her.

Natasha's smile was getting thinner.

Clint just grinned. That rose had thorns and he never minded watching someone realize that.


	73. Book Club: Darcy & Natasha

**A/N**: Prompt by yuidirnt at the LJ Comment Fic comm: any, any, Not Your Standard Membership Application (title by nyxmidnight AO3)

* * *

><p><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong>Book Club<strong>**********************

"Um, ma'am?"

"Yes," Darcy brightly acknowledges the first Stark Industries employee to venture into the room.

Hard to say why only one: the break room has plush couches, free coffee and pastries, and stacks of awesome book selection number one.

But the employee, Sheryl on her nametag, is worrying her lip between her teeth as she frowns at the application form. "Is this kind of background check _standard_ for a book club?"

Background check?!

Darcy snatches up a copy of the application and nearly bangs her head on the table. Next time Natasha says she needs to read more books, Darcy's bribing Pepper to keep her away from the forms.


	74. Floral Declarations: Clint & Maria

**A/N**: Prompts at the LJ Comment Fic comm by _**yuidirnt**_: any, any, giving someone flowers without knowing their meaning - while the other person does and ends up worrying over nothing and _**leni_ba**_: any. any. Belvedere, I declare war against you

* * *

><p><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong>Floral Declarations<strong>**********************

"It's summer cypress," Clint tells her.

Maria is still staring at him with his arms full of easily plantable shrub the nursery worker _promised_ would look good in her new backyard as though he were carrying a viper, not a bush.

"You going to let me in?" he asks after another moment of the staring contest between Hill and the plant. (If you ask him, unmoving non-sentience notwithstanding, it's a moot point. The SHIELD deputy director's always going to win.)

Said deputy director pastes on a smile and holds the door open for him. "Is this for that last mission?" she asks.

"As if." Clint scoffs. "You owe _me_ for that one."

"I see." She shows him to the backyard.

* * *

><p>It's a housewarming gift, nothing more, Maria tells herself. Except it's Clint and Natasha probably helped him pick it out and last time she checked (while undercover as a florist), that bush packs a rather distinctive whollop of a message: I declare war against you. She wouldn't put it past either of them.<p>

* * *

><p>"Not that I'm complaining or anything, but what's this for?" Clint holds up the package of Nespresso, his favorite kind (that he usually steals from her private stash). "Is it poisoned?"<p>

G—, they're all paranoid. Maria shakes her head. "Just leave mine alone for a while."

Clint grins. "Sure thing, boss."

* * *

><p>Natasha frowns when she next digs through Clint's file. It's a regular part of her take-care-of-my-partner behavior and she waves the folder in his face while he's <em>trying<em> to fill out a mission report.

"Hey! Watch it!"

"Why aren't there any complaints for insubordination?"

"Huh?" He looks up, totally confused.

"Hill. You two had a chat last week and it didn't go well." Natasha crosses her arms. "I was planning to deal with it."

"Let me see that." Clint snatches the file and looks through it, frowning. Finally, he shrugs. "Guess Coulson beat you to it."

Natasha looks unconvinced.

* * *

><p>Clint <em>feels<em> unconvinced when he starts paying attention and realizes that Maria is being nice to him, too nice. She's letting a lot of his more grating personality quirks go with little more than a clenched jaw and doing little things for him that usually only Coulson does. He always thought her straight-shooting hard-nosed persona was scary, but he's come to a new conclusion in a few days: that was comfortable. Nice is scary.

"Okay, now she's freaking me out."

Natasha is trying to read through her briefing and brushes him off in annoyance. "Quit breathing in my ear."

"I just hit every single briefing pet peeve of Hill's and she didn't say a word."

Natasha looks up in something akin to mild horror. "Are you trying to get us in trouble?"

"Nothing happened, Nat," he stresses. "It's freaking me out."

She narrows her eyes and thinks about it. "When did this start?"

Clint shrugs. Observant in the field doesn't always translate to personal interactions, especially with women he's already written off as inexplicable.

"What was the last thing you did for her?"

He has to think for a moment. "I bought her a plant. You know she put in that new yard. Everyone got her something."

Natasha frowns. "What kind of plant?"

* * *

><p>"Alstroemeria and rue." Clint raises his eyebrows. "Quite a mouthful."<p>

"Just give her the flowers, Barton," Natasha orders with a sigh.

"Ma'am, yes, ma'am."

* * *

><p>He almost asks Maria (or Natasha) what was up with the plants, but he doesn't. Some things are better written off as inexplicable.<p>

* * *

><p><strong>Flower meanings:<strong>

belvedere - declaration of war

Alstroemeria - friendship and devotion

Rue - apology


	75. Hand Over the Files: Coulson & Clint

**A/N**: Prompt by tigriswolf at the LJ Comment Fic community: author's choice, author's choice, "Yes, I am a trained sign language interpreter"

* * *

><p><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong>Hand Over the Files and No One Will Get Hurt<strong>**********************

By the time Coulson showed up in the hospital room (after cleaning up the truly spectacular mess that was Budapest), Clint's body language was already borderline hostile, Natasha had wiped the borders off the map, the doctor had backed up as far as he could without leaving the room, and Sharon had undertaken to making some sense between Clint's hands and the doctor's words.

"Yes, I am a trained sign language interpreter," Agent Carter answered Coulson's unspoken question (and double-take) with some heat.

"Clint is not fluent in sign," the doctor interjected with the tone that implied this was an irritating repetition. "He barely knows ASL at all."

"It's homesign," Sharon said, also with the tone of repetition, "mixed with military hand signals. Now give me the d— prognosis on his hearing loss so I can tell it to him."

"Or else hand over the file," Natasha added.

So much for having left his assets in capable hands. Coulson stepped in and started smoothing down feathers and commandeering medical records. Somewhere in there, Clint apparently decided Coulson would make everything better and went to sleep.


	76. Good Cop, Bad Cop: Clint & Coulson

**A/N**: Prompt by amai-kaminari at the LJ Comment Fic community: any, any, "Never convicted"

* * *

><p><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong>Good Cop, Bad Cop<strong>**********************

"You're a criminal, Mr. Barton," the suit plowed on.

"Never convicted," Clint interjected dryly and sipped his 'drink.'

"A thief, a liar, an assassin—"

Clint's eyebrows came up.

"—a small-time crook, and a con man. Your passport is false—"

"Imagine that." He crooked a smile at the other suit, the quiet one who waited with barely visible impatience behind his colleague.

"—and your only known relations and friends are all behind bars where you should be too."

"Is this the pep talk?"

The other suit covered a laugh. The first one stopped his monologue and glared.

Clint leaned back, one hand spinning the shot glass of ginger ale. "You got a job, a recruitment speech, or anything to say that's actually worth my time?"

The second suit pushed back his colleague and cleared his throat quietly. "Actually we do. Have you ever heard of SHIELD?"


	77. Underneath It All: Tony x Pepper

**A/N**: Prompt by evil_little_dog at the LJ Comment Fic comm: MCU, Pepper Potts, Beneath the Fine Line (title by FortReveuse20)

* * *

><p><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong>Underneath It All (Until Tony Blows the Lid Off the Top)<strong>**********************

Working with Tony Stark, there's a fine line between affection and exasperation and an even finer one between anger and concern. But underneath all of that, beneath dragging him out of his lab and forcing him to act like a normal human being long enough to avoid a lawsuit and keeping him fed and running his company and reminding him that reality does not actually conform to his will, there's also something else she doesn't like to look at.

"Pepper, I love you," he tells her, arms still encased in a metal suit. "You're the light of my life and probably the only reason my company's still running and I'm still alive, but then—"

"Tony." She smiles her I'm-dealing-with-Tony-who-never-learned-boundaries smile as she steps on his speech. "Shut up."

"And kiss you?"

Exasperated, she blows out a sigh (and maybe it's affectionate too), and he does.

Kiss her, that is.


	78. Aftercare: Clint x Maria

**A/N**: Prompt by yuidirnt at the LJ Comment Fic comm: any, any unconventional or rare pairing, taking care of an injury

* * *

><p><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong>Aftercare<strong>**********************

"Sit," Maria ordered. Somehow, her usual firm tone managed to hold a tiny bit of room for compassion as well. A tiny bit.

Clint winced as he sat and she pressed the alcohol-soaked towel to his arm with as much gentleness as she applied a bullet wound to a terrorist.

"Stop fidgeting, Barton."

"I'm not," he protested then fell silent. He studied her face as she sat less than a foot in front of him, carefully cleaning his wounds and cutting back the shredded sleeve nearly melted onto his skin. "Think I'm going sleeveless in the future."

"Not in winter," Maria ordered absently. Her brow furrowed. She was completely focused on her task, and for a moment, Clint felt awkward, wondering if he was just a body to her, not an actual person underneath the agent.

He reached up and touched her shoulder.

She drew her gaze up with the reflexes born of years as a successful agent, assessing his mood and the threat level with barely more than a flicker in her eyes.

"Thank you," he said.

Maria drew in a slow breath, then nodded curtly and rummaged through the first aid kit for a bandage to wrap his arm in. "Next time, Barton, try to avoid the laser gun."

Clint just smiled at her. They both knew he would do what needed to be done, regardless.


	79. Precipice: Clint x Natasha

**A/N**: Prompt by leni_ba at the LJ Comment Fic comm: any, any, Tell my love to wreck it all / Cut out all the ropes and let me fall

* * *

><p><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong>Precipice<strong>**********************

_Kill me, Natasha,_ he thinks at his partner from somewhere under the hazy blue. (The tesseract is supposed to bring clarity; it clouds his vision and swallows the focused vision he has always had.)

_Fight me. Take me down. Let me go._ Clint tries to force the issue, plunging his knife with real intent (with Loki's intent; why won't Natasha make it stop?) and snapping the deadly tension in his bow against her neck.

_Cut the d— ropes, Tasha. Let me fall._ She's kept him from plunging over the cliffs for years, yanked him up from crumbling buildings, catching him back from the dark abyss after his brother died, after Bobbi left...

Not this time. Not this time.

The tesseract clouds his vision. He doesn't see until it's too late that she will never let him fall.


	80. Things We Do for Love: Clint x Natasha

**A/N**: Prompt by evil_little_dog at the LJ Comment Fic comm: Any, M+/F, Peppermint ice cream in the stores means Christmas is coming

* * *

><p><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong>Things We Do for Love<strong>**********************

There's a terrifying, dreadful, terrible carton sitting on the counter like a sentinel of impending doom.

"Barton," Natasha's voice carries warningly through the apartment, though she's barely raised it. It's all in the pitch.

Clint appears from the other side of the counter where he's been bent over and rummaging in the fridge apparently. "I don't like the sound of that."

She pokes at the hostile object. "Again?" She glowers at the carton, then frowns at him.

His eyebrows come up. "You like peppermint."

"The stores only carry peppermint ice cream—"

"—when Christmas is coming. I know." He still doesn't get it.

Natasha glowers at him. "Again?" she demands.

"Comes every year," Clint answers, clearly mystified. He pops the top and hands her a spoon. "It's Christmas. Enjoy it."

She would if it were just quiet churches and flaming candles and the occasional small gift and well wishes from the few coworkers she names friend. But it's not. Clint never had a Christmas growing up. Clint never had the postcard family dinner as a child and the tree and the presents and the excess and the helter-skelter, hurry-busy, deck the halls and play the Christmas music non-stop until my poor partner is literally sick with it and the cooking and the baking and the secrets and the endless, grating cheer and mistletoe and shopping (_shopping!_) and eating cookies until my poor partner is quite literally sick with them...

She yanks the offered spoon out of his hand and attacks the ice cream with the vim of the mortally offended.

"What'd the peppermint ever do to you?" Clint asks lazily and dips his own spoon in slowly, then licks off the ice cream with a grin.

"No mistletoe," Natasha orders him viciously. "Or tinsel."

He nods acceptance and keeps leaning on the counter eating ice cream, one bite after each of hers.

The things she does for partners.


	81. Don't: Clint x Natasha

**A/N**: Prompt by tigriswolf at the LJ Comment Fic comm: Avengers movieverse, Clint/Natasha, did some things you can't speak of but at night, you see them all again

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><p><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong>Don't<strong>**********************

She comes to him still smelling of another man, and there's a part of him that wants to put her in the shower and wash it off, but you don't look a gift horse in the mouth and you don't stop and ask questions when the Black Widow is sitting in your lap, whispering into your mouth, "Make me forget."

She tells him sometimes about the other men, how she thought of him when they were touching her, how she imagined his archer hands into theirs and missed the calluses. She guides his hands to where they touched her, and there's a part of him that wants to growl and claim her, but you don't claim the Black Widow's weapons for your own, even if those weapons are offered as gifts to you for a time.

She never lets a man finish the job or take what she doesn't want to offer if Hawkeye isn't there to see it, but when he's looking out for her through a scope for rifle or bow, she shows off her body, shows off her moves, and glances down the sightline as if to see if he's watching. Do you see something you want? Do you see what thinking of you does to me? It's wrong on so many levels, watching another man take her, but you don't stop being assassins and spies and you can't wipe the blood from your fingers and you don't stop to ask questions when the Black Widow is breathing hot into your mouth, "You're the only one I want."


	82. Yao, Xie Xie: Clint x Natasha

**A/N**: Prompt by leni_ba at the LJ Comment Fic comm: any. any/any. I say the damnest things when you're on top of me.

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><p><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong>Yao, Xie Xie<strong>**********************

Natasha doesn't speak Farsi, which is good because Clint does and both of them need some way he can keep his secrets from her, just as she needs space for secrets from him.

It starts the day he finds her weeping after Odessa and he doesn't ask why, just holds her until she can ball up her sobs under something raw and primal but contained. She tells him everything, murmuring secrets into his neck in Mandarin as she vents in the most intimate way she knows.

Clint doesn't ask in the morning if the sex means anything. It does mean something, and he very much doubts it means what most men would think.

It continues when he returns from a mission, target Trickshot and no one told him why they had sent him in particular, and she's there in his apartment, face solemn and quiet, letting him take her, letting him need her, and listening as he tells her everything, murmuring in Farsi all his secrets and the pain of this particular kill.

She doesn't ask either in the morning if the sex means anything because it does, and they both know it, and it isn't whatever name someone else would call it by.

They have no secrets from each other, and there are no lies between them. "You want to talk about it?" He answers in Farsi, which is yes, and you're the only one I'll ever tell. She answers in any of three languages she's verified he does not understand.

"Barton told me everything," Loki throws into her face.

The fire. The daughter. The blood. The times she crawled weeping into his arms and let him ride her through the low. She doesn't care.

Clint will admit to anything when she holds him in her arms, when she's skin to skin on top of him. She'll do the same.

It doesn't end.

"You want to talk about it?" "Yao, xie xie."


	83. A Matter of Taste: Clint x Natasha

**A/N**: For the ATTF: Three Sentence Ficathon!

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><p><strong>A Matter of Taste<strong>

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><p>Prompted by spyforaday: <em>When Natasha finally agrees to move-in to StarkAvengers Tower, Clint is consulted to make sure her suite is appropriate for the one and only Black Widow_.

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><p>"No, no, and no."<p>

"But she likes weapons!" Tony protested, quite justifiably in his opinion: Natasha regularly bristled with lethal items, including but not limited to literally any object on her person.

Clint just shook his head and repeated, "No, Stark; she will not appreciate a gun display wall in her bedroom."


	84. Those Promises You Keep: Clint x Nat

**A/N**: For the ATTF: Three Sentence Ficathon!

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><p><strong><strong><strong>Those Promises You Keep <strong>****

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><p>Prompted by franztastisch: <em>These hips don't lie<em>.

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><p>"Those hips better lie," Clint retorted heatedly.<p>

Natasha shot him a look and demanded, "Excuse me, Agent Barton?"

"You sashay for every mark who's susceptible," he reminded her, "but last I checked, the only one who gets them is me."


	85. Hey, Honey, It's Me: Clint x Natasha

**A/N**: For the ATTF: Three Sentence Ficathon!

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><p><strong><strong><strong><strong>Hey, Honey, It's Me<strong> ******

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><p>Prompted by alphaflyer: <em>Mr. and Mrs. Smith<em>

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><p>"Agent Barton, do you have a lock on the target?" Coulson's mild but exasperated voice came over the comm, again.<p>

Clint pulled the comm out of his ear and picked up his gaping jaw, though he prudently kept the arrow pointed in case this was one of those new fangled life model decoys Fury'd been going on about. "Honey?"

...

"Clint," Natasha began, looking positively puzzled, "what are you doing here?"

Yep, that was definitely the real deal and not a life model decoy; he'd never met anyone that could fake her exact expressions.

He put the comm back in his ear and told Coulson where to tell Fury to put his kill order.


	86. it don't feel right: Clint x Natasha

**A/N**: Three sentences fics written for the random songlist meme where you pick a pairing, put your music on shuffle, and write.

Songs: Elastic Heart by Sia, How You Learn to Live Alone by Jonathan Jackson, Can't Get It Right by Sam Palladio, Eavesdrop by The Civil Wars, Home by Ingrid Michaelson

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><p><em>you won't see me fall apart ('cause I've got an elastic heart)<em>

Natasha stood over Clint as he rasped her name, her eyes drawing together slightly in a frown of consideration rather than concern. Through every time she had held him wounded or bloody in her arms, every time he had known the tenderness or pain of her touch as she rescued him, fought for him, held his skin together so he wouldn't bleed out, he had never seen the tenderness reach her eyes.

He saw her draw back her fist to knock the rest of Loki out of his head and knew that this was the Tasha who would be whole and strong for him: she would wait until she was alone to fall apart into pieces.

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><p><em>it don't feel right but it's not wrong (it's just hard to start again this far along)<em>

Clint fell into a deep sleep before his back had barely hit the bed, and he woke in a depth of silence that brought something choking up in his throat. His fingers gripped something sharp and solid under the pillow as he noticed every hint of shadow, every gleam of morning light in his apartment that had never registered before—the sights and shapes of home, the weight dipping down the mattress beside him…

He had the knife up before he had time to register the familiar warm scent, scrubbed of perfume, the trail of red curls, the familiar green eyes over the familiar touch of Natasha's hand gently taking the weapon, and he let her because it was Natasha, because he trusted her, because he didn't need to hear her voice and she didn't need to speak for that trust to pass between them.

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><p><em>counting up the lines on the highway (like I'm counting my regrets)<em>

Hotels passed in blurs like the yellow lines of roads passing beneath the wheels of Clint's car. Arrows blurred into targets, silences passed where brotherly banter used to fill the air, and he crashed into strange streets in strange bed after strange bed.

"I killed my brother," Natasha told him once, voice soft and dark with the admission, another red name bleeding into her ledger, and he'd laughed so darkly and bitterly because she always thought he was somehow better than she was until he'd looked into her surprised eyes and told her, "I did too."

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><p><em>I don't want to talk right now (I just want your arms wrapped around)<em>

Love is for children.

Clint's eyes were dark and wounded, but his voice soft and understanding, but he _didn't_ understand, he didn't, so Natasha tightened her hand around his, begging him with her eyes to stay and not walk away.

She had no words to bridge the gap between the fundamental difference in how they viewed the world, but she held on until he gently tugged her into his arms and she could finally breathe again.

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><p><em>I've always known (with you I am home)<em>

Natasha stayed with him through the recovery in the hospital with none of her usual restlessness at being immersed in the medical wing of SHIELD, and Clint wasn't entirely certain he understood it, but he was grateful as he watched her sleep with the ease of her capability of doing whatever must be done and listen to the doctor carefully for aftercare instructions. They were partners and nothing felt quite right anymore if they were separated.

"Finally, we can go home," Clint said at the end with a grin, but she just gave him the oddest look and opened her mouth as if to answer before stopping herself, shaking her head, and tucking her hand into his.


End file.
